Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

FRASERBURGH HARBOUR ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL

FRASERBURGH HARBOUR (No. 2) ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL

FRASERBURGH HARBOUR (No. 3) ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL

Considered; to be read the Third time.

Oral Answers to Questions — ENVIRONMENT

Listed Buildings

Mr. Chapman: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what is his estimate of the numbers of buildings which have been listed as of architectural or historic interest.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Richard Tracey): A total of 360,590 buildings in England had been listed by the end of September this year.

Mr. Chapman: I congratulate my hon. Friend on his appointment and wish him well. Will he confirm that the objective of listing buildings is to conserve architectural excellence rather than just to preserve architectural mediocrity? Does he agree that it would be wrong to increase the numbers just for the sake of it, for example, to the round figure of 500,000?

Mr. Tracey: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's congratulation. I recognise his experience in these matters. My right hon. Friend is satisfied with the strict criteria adopted by the supervision of the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission and considers it a matter of some pride that, when completed, the resurvey of England will represent the most comprehensive record of buildings of architectural and historic importance in Europe.

Mr. Dalyell: Does the commission have enough skilled staff to do the listing?

Mr. Tracey: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Heddle: Does my hon. Friend recall the case of Monkspath Hall in the west midlands, a listed building

which quite by chance was demolished one Sunday afternoon about four years ago by an Irish bulldozer driver to make way for an industrial estate? Does my hon. Friend agree that the penalties for accidentally demolishing listed buildings should be increased substantially to take account of replacement costs, and will he have discussions with the Home Secretary about the matter?

Mr. Tracey: I accept what my hon. Friend says. He will be interested to know that 217 listed buildings were demolished in the year ending 31 March 1985, of which 214 were in grade 2. No grade 1 listed building was lost.

Rate Support Grant

Mr. Fisher: asked the Secretary of State for the environment when he proposes announcing the final details of the 1981–87 rate support grant settlement.

The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Kenneth Baker): I hope to make an announcement before Christmas.

Mr. Fisher: The House hopes so, too. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this rate support grant, when it is announced —and it will surely be cut for the fifth consecutive year —will look even more inadequate in the light of his Department's survey of housing defects, which showed a need for £18·8 billion to be spent? What advice and help will the right hon. Gentleman give to councils which are trying to tackle their housing problems, considering that their rate support grant will inevitably be cut?

Mr. Baker: I must ask the hon. Gentleman to await my announcement. The grant percentage for next year will work out at about the same as this year, after allowing for holdback. We have already announced the provisional GREs for the hon. Gentleman's city, and he will know that the GRE for Stoke has gone up by 17·5 per cent.

Mr. Charles Morrison: While being fully aware of the needs of inner cities, which are emphasised time and again, may I ask my right hon. Friend, when he makes his announcement, please to take full account of the situation facing low-spending shire counties, and in particular Government commitments to them in the past about rate support grant?

Mr. Baker: Yes. After the abolition of targets, penalties and holdbacks, we shall introduce a system of caps to ensure that the transition is smooth.

Mr. Alton: When the Secretary of State or his officials discussed with Phillips and Drew the rate support grant settlement for 1986–87 for the city of Liverpool, what concessions did he make, or what concessions were made by the council, so that the books could be balanced for 1981–87?

Mr. Baker: The rate support settlement was not discussed by Phillips and Drew or by the bankers. They approached my Department only to ascertain whether the deferred purchase agreement was legal. I answered this question yesterday. The Government have not given a penny more to Liverpool to balance the budget.

Mr. Shersby: Is my right hon. Friend doing everything possible to ensure that adequate safety nets are being constructed so that prudent local authorities do not suffer excessive grant cuts?

Mr. Baker: We are introducing a system of caps and safety nets to ensure that the progression from the existing system to the new system is phased.

Mr. Benn: When the Government draw up their grants for the coming year, will they take account of the report that has just been published by the Church of England? It represents two or three years of serious work and appears to show that there has been a major failure by the Government to meet the pressing needs of some of the inner city areas.

Mr. Baker: I refute completely the right hon. Gentleman's allegation of failure by central Government. During the lat six years we have provided substantial additional resources to the inner cities. I shall make this clear in the Government's response to this report and to other reports about the problems that face the inner cities. The rate support grant system and the grant related expenditure assessments recognise the needs of the inner cities. They recognise that they are areas of social deprivation and that grants should flow to them to deal with these problems.

Mr. Beaumont-Dark: Does my right hon. Friend accept that many of his right hon. and hon. Friends welcome the appointment of a Secretary of State who has a sense of realism and compassion about the problems that face such cities as Birmingham? Will he use that goodwill to ensure that cities which face great problems in their inner areas get not just a fair crack of the whip but justice?

Mr. Baker: When I was in Birmingham about 10 days ago I met Dick Knowles, the Labour leader. The leaders of the councils whom I meet at this time of the year always produce the most horrific stories about the likely rates increase: that it will be 40 per cent., 50 per cent., 70 per cent. or 80 per cent. Dick Knowles said 60 per cent. I do not believe that, after I have made my announcement, it will be necessary for Birmingham to levy a rate increase of that kind. Birmingham is a very good example of what the Government have done by means of inner city aid. I went round the houses in Handsworth and round Lozells road, where I saw the results of enveloping and of bringing back into use as a result of direct subsidy property that was built 50 or 60 years ago in the hon. Gentleman's constituency.

Mr. Chris Smith: In view of the Prime Minister's constantly reiterated claim that the Government are spending more money on the inner cities, and in view also of the powerful evidence that has been produced by, among others, the Church of England, does the Secretary of State intend to provide additional money for the inner city areas in the forthcoming financial year through the rate support grant settlement? Does he intend to restore any of the major cuts that have been made in the last five years?

Mr. Baker: The hon. Gentleman knows how the rate-capping system operates, because of the rate capping of his own borough of Islington. He knows, therefore, that one of the results of rate capping this year was a flow back of grant to Islington. As Islington will be rate capped next year, there will also be a flow back of grant to Islington next year. The hon. Gentleman's council leader, Mrs. Hodge, said a year ago that 1,000 jobs would be lost in Islington through rate capping. Not one job has been lost

in Islington. Since then the press relations officers have resigned from Islington because, they said, they were told to lie during the campaign.

Mr. Maples: Is my right hon. Friend satisfied that the rate support grant settlement that he is to announce for London, when coupled with a revised London rate equalisation scheme, will ensure that no London boroughs' ratepayers are financially disadvantaged as a result of the GLC's abolition?

Mr. Baker: The effect upon the ratepayers of London will depend decisively upon the decisions taken by the respective borough councils. That will be clear when I make the rate support grant settlement. Those who budget prudently and run their affairs efficiently will, I think, be pleased.

Dr. Cunningham: Does the Secretary of State's original answer mean that he is confirming the statement by his predecessor in July of this year that next year the rate support grant will be at the same cash level as this year? If so, is he not announcing a real cut of about £700 million in resources for local authorities?
In the face of the report "Faith in the City", the last in a long line of reports on the problems —the Duke of Edinburgh's inquiry, the Department's own investigation, the CBI's "Change to Succeed", an inquiry into British housing —is it not scandalous that this will be the sixth successive year in which the Government have cut the rate support grant and made the problems of all local authorities much worse?

Mr. Baker: The hon. Gentleman will know, because he understands the complexity of the matter, that, as a result of abolishing targets, holdback and penalties, about £300 million to £400 million more in grant will be in the system next year. Local authorities already know that the provisional GREAs which were announced six weeks ago show a shift towards the towns and cities principally because the GREAs now recognise more fully the real demands for concessionary fares for the elderly and disabled and for social work.

London Residuary Body

Mr. Tony Banks: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment when he last met the chairman of the London Residuary Body; and what was discussed.

Mr. Tracey: My right hon. Friend met the chairman on 27 November to discuss matters relevant to the Residuary Body's functions under the Local Government Act 1985.

Mr. Banks: I was hoping that the engine driver would answer my question.
Is it true that the Secretary of State said that he wanted to see County Hall taken apart brick by brick? If so, is that not an insult to Londoners? When the hon. Gentleman next speaks to the chairman of the London Residuary Body, will he ensure that County Hall is not sold off as a hotel? If it is sold off as a hotel, will he guarantee the safety of the war memorial on the principal floor?

Mr. Tracey: The hon. Gentleman has not changed his spots. He will presumably know that County Hall is a listed building. The London Residuary Body will be aiming to sell County Hall as soon as possible. In order to do that it will be necessary for ILEA to make alternative


arrangements for accommodation, and I understand that negotiations between the LRB and ILEA have already begun.

Mr. Marlow: Can my hon. Friend confirm that any cash that is left over from the GLC will go to the London Residuary Body? What action is he taking to prevent Mr. Livingstone from buying himself a parliamentary seat in North London with bribes?

Mr. Tracey: I can assure my hon. Friend that any balances which are left over —I understand that they will be considerable —will go to the London Residuary Body for distribution to the boroughs. I see that the Leader of the GLC has been named "Santa Ken" by some of our newspapers.

Mr. John Fraser: Is the Minister aware of the recommendation in the report "Faith in the City" that there should be an expanded public housing programme of new building and improvement'? Instead of describing the report as negative, as the Secretary of State did, can the hon. Gentleman be positive and give an assurance that the pot of gold of around £30 million of capital receipts held by the GLC will be used for house building and improvement in London, that the GLC house improvement teams which have done such splendid work in London, particularly in rundown estates, will not be broken up, and that the housing research function for London will he preserved? Will he, unlike the Secretary of State, not attack the Church, but say something positive about what can be done for housing in London?

Mr. Tracey: I had not noticed that my right hon. Friend had attacked the Church. I would ask that when such reports are written, some figures should be put on the assessments made by the critics. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that any of the balances that are left over will go to the Residuary Body and be distributed to the boroughs. The hon. Gentleman mentioned property, and I shall be looking into that.

Local Authorities (Capital Receipts)

Mr. Hayes: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will issue for consultation a Green Paper on the spending of capital receipts from council house sales; and if he will make a statement.

The Minister of State for Housing, Urban Affairs and Construction (Mr. John Patten): My right hon. Friend announced in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, East (Mr. Moynihan) on 20 November, at column 246, that the prescribed proportion of capital receipts will remain unchanged next year. My right hon. Friend hopes to publish proposals for reform of the local authority capital control system in a Green Paper early in the new year.

Mr. Hayes: Now that a wooden stake has been driven through sterling M3, will my hon. Friend assist in making a shallow grave for the policy that allows £6·3 billion of capital receipts from council house sales to lie idly in local authority bank accounts, earning interest that is used by profligate authorities in revenue spending?

Mr. Patten: The money is not lying idle. A substantial proportion of the cash from receipts has already been spent on the repaying of debt and also on repairs and maintenance. Councils are committed to spending a

reasonable proportion of their capital receipts and, when they spend that money on housing, it must be replaced by further borrowing, which therefore drives up the local authority borrowing requirement, and that in turn drives up the public sector borrowing requirement, stake and all.

Mr. Simon Hughes: Will the Minister confirm that the much vaunted so-called increase of £200 million achieved by the Secretary of State in his Cabinet discussions was, when examined, found to be a net decrease of money? It was only because of an increase in housing receipts that extra money was to be available from council house sales. The Department of the Environment's budget for next year shows a cut in money for local authority housing —not a success at all. The Secretary of State's first battle was a loss to housing, not a victory.

Mr. Patten: That question is uncharacteristic of the hon. Gentleman. There is more money there, and more money will be spent. There is more money because of the allocations and the receipts plus the head room that is necessary to account for the considerable overspending —alas —that local councils are indulging in this year.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Does my hon. Friend accept that his reply will be disappointing to some Conservative Members, particularly those who represent boroughs which have been highly responsible and prudent and have acquired those capital receipts in response to Government requests and Government policy? Will he therefore review the matter, bearing in mind that those councils have planned their expenditure for the future based on capital receipts, and not based on borrowing and upping the rates?

Mr. Patten: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is doing exactly that. He is reviewing the system and will be bringing forward a Green Paper early in the new year. I pay tribute to the prudence of my hon. Friend's borough council and I remind him and all other right hon. and hon. Members that, for some reason, many councils seem to ignore the opportunities given to them to spend up to 100 per cent. of capital receipts on schemes to promote low-cost home ownership. That is a pity.

Mr. Heffer: Has not the Government's housing policy been an absolute disaster? If the Minister wants proof of that, I suggest that he reads "Faith in the City". I have a copy, but I think that most Conservative Members have not been prepared to spend £7·50 to obtain a copy. I suggest that they read the serious points in the section on housing and recognise that the policy it puts forward, which is not entirely the policy of the Labour party, would begin to deal with the problems of housing —unlike the Government's policy, which does not.

Mr. Patten: The Secretary of State has said that we are considering the report and will consider it further.

Mr. Pawsey: Is my hon. Friend aware that his answer will cause some disquiet to smaller authorities whose council house sales are less than £1 million per annum? Will he therefore consider excluding those smaller authorities from that ceiling?

Mr. Patten: I am aware of the problems for smaller authorities to which my hon. Friend refers. We are considering exactly that point in the Green Paper which is to be published early in the new year.

Mr. Rooker: Will the Minister confirm that of the "extra" £220 million of cash made available, only £160


million will be used on revenue, and that some of that will be used, not on construction, but to pay loan charges because of higher interest rates than those forecast? Is it not the case that Ministers do not know how much of capital receipt money is spent on housing? They have no information about the amount that local authorities use for housing. People outside cannot understand why £6·3 billion is in the bank when it could be spent on improvement grants for owner-occupiers, as well as putting right public sector stock.

Mr. Patten: Other adjustments are made to try to take care of the first point made by the hon. Gentleman. As to the second point, there is not £6·3 billion in the bank. A substantial amount of that cash has already been spent on repaying debt and on capitalisation of repairs and maintenance.

Derelict Land

Mr. Freeman: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what was the total amount of derelict land grants disbursed in the last 12 months for which statistics are available.

Mr. Kenneth Baker: In the year to September 1985, £65 million was paid in derelict land grant to local authorities and other bodies. I have increased the resources available this year to £82 million. I shall shortly issue a circular on reclaiming derelict land —it is an essential tool for urban regeneration.

Mr. Freeman: Will my right hon. Friend write today to the Archbishop of Canterbury and remind him that many Christians are also Conservatives who agree that the derelict land grant programme is a sensible way of helping inner cities, unlike the Archbishop's commission's proposals, which amount to worn-out Socialist dogma of spending an extra £4 billion of public money?

Mr. Baker: I should be happy to meet the Archbishop of Canterbury to discuss the problems of the inner cities with him. I would draw to his attention —some parts of the report recognise it —the considerable resources that are applied to dealing with the inner city problems. The increase in derelict land grant has been from some £23 million when we came to office to £82 million this year —well in excess of the rate of inflation and a substantial increase in real terms. I think that the money is very well spent in dealing with many of the problems mentioned by the report —housing, enterprise workshops and regenerating our inner cities. I should like the country to recognise the enormous amount that we are doing.

Mr. Litherland: With one quarter of the industrial sites in Manchester now lying vacant, what assistance will the Government give for demolition and the refurbishment of those sites in the north-east of Manchester?

Mr. Baker: I am well aware of the problems of the decline of some of the industrial base of Manchester. We provide extra assistance through derelict land grant. I have seen several projects in the city, some of which are part of the urban programme, which are revitalising the centre, particularly the old central railway station, which I hope will become a magnet for exhibitions and so on. That programme will continue. This year I am concentrating the urban programme more on the cities and towns with the greatest need.

Mr. Hickmet: Is my right hon. Friend aware of how important these grants are in my constituency? Is he aware that last year his Department gave a derelict land grant of £1·4 million to the Normanby park steelworks site, and that currently the local authorities have put in an application for more than £16 million? Will my right hon. Friend consider that application sympathetically?

Mr. Baker: My hon. Friend has been to see me twice about those matters. I was glad to approve a grant of £1·4 million for private derelict land recovery of the old Normanby steelworks. My hon. Friend is right in saying that a substantial application is before me and my Department. It emphasises the importance of that spend. We have to bring that derelict land back into effective use.

Mr. Foot: When the right hon. Gentleman meets the Archbishop of Canterbury, will he tender a collective apology on behalf of all Cabinet members, or on behalf of only a few of them? Will he pass on to the Archbishop the message from the chairman of the Conservative party that he is now praying for the Church of England?

Mr. Baker: I speak for the Government in these matters. There was some talk that the report had been leaked before the weekend, when it had been intended for publication on Tuesday. However, I understand that it was on sale on Saturday morning in Dillon's bookshop.

Voluntary Organisations

Mr. Terry Lewis: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what representations he has received since his statement on 19 November, Official Report, column 148, about future grants for countrywide voluntary organisations currently funded by the metropolitan counties and the Greater London council.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Sir George Young): My noble Friend the Minister of State discussed this and other matters with representatives of the London voluntary sector last week, but there have been no written representations on the matter of countrywide organisations.

Mr. Lewis: Is the Minister aware that there has been a disappointing response from his Department to the transitional bids made by local authorities, with only a low percentage of bids being accepted? In view of that, of what value are the promises made in this House and in another place last year during the debates on abolition?

Sir George Young: The hon. Gentleman said that local authorities were disappointed with the allocations. However, we announced some time ago that we would help with £20 million worth of transitional projects. Indeed, a few weeks ago we announced allocations for projects of exactly that value. That is additional money to the rate support grant and other resources.
I am encouraged by the progress being made on the transitional arrangements for voluntary sector projects in the areas affected by abolition.

Mr. Dickens: Is my hon. Friend aware that many constituents are writing to Members of Parliament who represent areas within the metropolitan county councils that are covered by voluntary organisations? Those organisations wonder whether they will still receive the grants that they currently receive, and whether the money that is recycled by the metropolitan county councils will


still find its way to them. Can my hon. Friend clarify that? The Greater Manchester council is the authority involved in my area.

Sir George Young: As a Member who represents just such an area, I am well aware of the correspondence to which my hon. Friend has referred.
The Government have set up two schemes. One is the section 48 scheme for organisations that cover more than one district. Progress with that scheme is quite encouraging. The other scheme is the one referred to by the hon. Member for Worsley (Mr. Lewis). As I told him, an extra £20 million is being made available to help that scheme. In addition, all the rate support grant that currently goes to the metropolitan county councils will be available to the successor bodies, and that will provide additional help.

Mr. Meadowcroft: Is the Minister aware that many excellent voluntary organisations in Yorkshire, currently in receipt of grant, are concerned about their future? Will the hon. Gentleman go beyond the block amount available and tell the House what process there is for evaluating projects to decide whether they are worth funding in future? That is the question to which most voluntary organisations want an answer.

Sir George Young: That decision rests with the local authorities. My Department has indicated the provisional amount of money available to local authorities for transitional projects. It is for local authorities to decide which projects to fund with transitional help and which to take on board themselves.

Mr. Boyes: The Minister's answers simply are not good enough. They reveal a lack of knowledge of the magnitude of the problems that will face voluntary organisations, which have told me that the transitional grants are not sufficient. The additional spending power of boroughs on a county-wide basis under section 48 is not good enough. Why did the Minister not consider the solution offered by a number of organisations—that the section 137 2p rate should be increased to 4p for borough councils?

Sir George Young: I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his first intervention from the Dispatch Box. As he knows, we debated these matters at length when the abolition Bill passed through the House earlier this year. I am satisfied that the Government have done all they can to ensure that worthwhile voluntary projects are not out of pocket as a result of abolition.

Derelict Land

Mr. Thurnham: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many acres of derelict land owned by public bodies were sold during the last 12 months.

Mr. John Patten: In the 12 months ended 31 October 1985, 6,300 acres of unused or underused land on the land registers have been sold. A further 3,500 acres have been removed from the registers because their owners have brought them back into use.

Mr. Thurnham: I welcome pressure on councils to dispose of surplus derelict land, but may I ask my hon. Friend to assure the House that he does not expect councils willy-nilly to sell off public parks and open spaces, such as the amenity land in front of Eagley Bank infants school in my constituency?

Mr. Patten: As it happens, I can reply to my hon. Friend with some degree of authority, for I have recently visited Bolton twice in his company. The issue to which he refers is twofold. First, there is a piece of vacant land, which has been vacant and unused for a long time, which needs to be disposed of. Secondly, the problems of the after-use of that land can be dealth with by the borough council through the normal planning process. It is the borough council's task and responsibility.

Mr. Tony Banks: How much derelict land is owned by Government Departments? What pressure does the Minister put on his colleagues to dispose of surplus Government land? In particular, what pressure does he put on the Secretary of State for Defence to dispose of derelict land that is surplus to requirements?

Mr. Patten: It is certainly true that Governemnt Departments own derelict land. I am not able to give the exact figure as I do not have it to hand, but I shall write and let the hon. Gentleman know the result. Just as Government Departments have surplus land —and we are making major efforts to get them to dispose of it as quickly as possible —so, too, besides local councils, do nationalised industries, and they need to get rid of it. My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Acton (Sir G. Young), who is to lead our disposal drive in 1986, will be after the nationalised industries.

Mr. David Howell: My hon. Friend is absolutely right about nationalised industries hanging on to unnecessary land. A great deal has been done to squeeze out surplus land from public authorities and utilities, but a good deal of land that nationalised industries call operational is sometimes not operational at all. Will my hon. Friend assure us that he and his colleagues will press other Departments and public utilities to get this surplus land, which is often derelict, back into housing or green and leisure facilities?

Mr. Patten: My right hon. Friend is, of course, absolutely right. Large public bodies, such as British Rail, or, for that matter, water authorities, sometimes own substantial amounts of land, which they should dispose of for re-use. We hear a great deal about the need for more investment in sewers. If water authorities got rid of more of their unused land, they could invest the proceeds in capital infrastructure.

Dr. David Clark: The Minister mentioned that he was going to encourage water authorities to sell off unused land. On much of that land there is access for walkers. Will the Minister give the assurance that, de facto, not de jure, access will be enshrined in any deals to sell off such land?

Mr. Patten: We recognise the important amenity value of land which is held by water authorities and of the water itself, which provides important amenities. Water authorities will be looking carefully at their legal duties to preserve access where that is appropriate.

Mr. Robert Atkins: How much derelict land is there in inner city areas controlled by the Labour party? In view of the comments about inner cities made recently by those in another place and elsewhere, is my hon. Friend aware that about six members of the commission are also members of the Labour party? Is there any correlation between those two facts?

Mr. Patten: I was aware of some of the facts to which my hon. Friend has referred. When I visit councils which complain about their housing —understandably —such as Hull, which has been under Labour party control for 38 of the last 40 years, and look at the land register, I find it hard to understand why they have just under 1,000 acres of unused, unsold land.

Maryport Harbour

Mr. Campbell-Savours: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he will make a statement on the improvement, reclamation and development of Maryport harbour.

Mr. Waldegrave: The Allerdale district council and English Estates are jointly preparing proposals to redevelop Maryport harbour. English Estates is to decide in the new year whether or not to go ahead with development. My Department has agreed in principle to provide derelict land grant for a good reclamation scheme leading to new investment and new jobs.

Mr. Campbell-Savours: Will the Minister join me in expressing the view that a development of Maryport harbour is crucial to the development of Maryport as a whole? Does he recognise that the construction of a road bridge linking the town to the harbour's infrastructure developments would spark off all sorts of private sector involvement? Can we look to the Government to provide us with the money to secure those infrastructure works?

Mr. Waldegrave: A good scheme would have the effect described by the hon. Gentleman, and I recognise the importance of a bridge to a good scheme. If a proposal is made to us, we shall consider it sympathetically.

Urban Development Corporations

Mr. Latham: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he has any plans to make orders under section 134 of the Local Government, Planning and Land Act 1980 setting up any further urban development corporations.

Mr. Kenneth Baker: None at the moment.

Mr. Latham: Is my right hon. Friend aware that some of us believe that these corporations could bring speedy, effective and non-bureaucratic action to tackle inner city deprivation? Will he look at this matter again, because, apart from anything else, such corporations would attract substantial private sector money?

Mr. Baker: I am examining this matter, because my hon. Friend is right. The London Docklands Development Corporation is conducting the most successful recovery of a derelict part of an inner city, and we have every right to be proud of it. So far it has attracted over £1 billion of private investment into the area. There is another development on Merseyside. This year I am providing resources of £95 million for the two corporations.

Mr. Simon Hughes: Does the Secretary of State accept that while everything that the two development corporations have done is not all bad, their greatest flaw is that there is no democratic accountability? Will he confirm what he said on the "London Programme" on Friday —that where there is very little derelict land, the structure of urban development corporations would be

highly inappropriate? Surely what is needed is confirmation by the Government of faith in the inner city, and faith in local government. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that he needs to support local government in tackling the problems of other deprived areas rather than giving such problems to appointees of his Department, who are not accountable?

Mr. Baker: Our faith in the inner cities is demonstrated by our commitment to them. Since we have been in office, we have put £1–5 billion into the inner cities through the urban programme, derelict land grants and urban development corporations. That is a substantial commitment, and there is no doubt that the development corporations have been a success. I reiterate what I said on the programme. The corporations have been particularly effective in the areas where there is much dereliction and where a great job has to be done. That job is now being done. Before the LDDC was set up in the east end of London, as the hon. Gentleman knows, the councils could not agree, the GLC could not agree and there was nothing. The record speaks for itself.

Mr. Squire: Can my right hon. Friend confirm that the achievements of the LDDC, which he rightly extols, have been effected in the face of a persistent and consistent campaign by the Left in those areas against everything that the corporation is trying to do? Will he comment on that aspect, given the rather quiet attitude of the Labour party?

Mr. Baker: One of the councils supportive of the LDDC has already come out in favour of the Canary wharf development. Some elements have constantly criticised, but such criticism is against the interests of the area. There is real regeneration in east London, and we should be proud of that.

Mr. Spearing: Irrespective of the merits of any one development, does the Secretary of State agree that one of the so-called popularities of the development corporations is that they have the unique power of selling public land together with planning permission, in certain cases without the normal safeguards of a public inquiry? Does he now agree that, irrespective of its merits, the Canary wharf development in the West India docks could and probably would have an enormous strategic impact on Greater London in general, and east London in particular? Why will he not permit a public inquiry?

Mr. Baker: I have already decided not to call in that development. In making that decision I had to consider all the various factors. We are talking about the creation of a new financial centre and mobile investment. If it is not to be built in the docklands area, it will not be built in another part of London. Instead, it will go to Frankfurt, Brussels, Amsterdam or elsewhere. The project is the largest civil investment programme for many years. It is a £1·5 billion programme that will provide 10 million sq ft of space and probably 40,000 to 50,000 jobs. I cannot take the risk of losing that sort of opportunity.

Mr. Dorrell: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the lesson of London docklands is that the urban development corporations have put the emphasis on urban development, not on party politics? Is that not an example that we should repeat in other inner city areas throughout the country?

Mr. Baker: My hon. Friend is right. The corporations have been extremely good instruments, and we are assessing their effectiveness. It may be that we can use


other forms of agency, such as private trusts, for the rehabilitation of certain derelict sites or areas in other parts of our cities. I am sure that the entire country and all political parties have a great deal to learn from the success that we are experiencing with the two corporations.

Dr. John Cunningham: Whatever the successes or otherwise of the corporations, how does the Secretary of State expect focal authorities to tackle the problems in their areas when, for example, the Government have reduced housing investment by 69 per cent. since they came to office? How does he expect local authorities to tackle the problems that face them when there has been a persistent reduction in rate support grant, which cumulatively exceeds about £16 billion? Why have the Government been able to find more than £22 billion in tax reductions for higher rate taxpayers since they came to office, while persistently withdrawing resources from inner cities?

Mr. Baker: If, as I believe, the hon. Gentleman is saying that the problems of the inner cities can be resolved by throwing more resources at them, I must ask him to consider the record of the 1960s and 1970s, when vast sums were literally thrown at the inner cities. It was during that period that the slums and the problems with which we are now dealing were built. That is generally agreed as an analysis. We must target moneys much more effectively, and that is the process in which I am engaged. We must find ways of introducing private sector money more effectively. That is another important element.

Local Authority Housing

Mr. Cartwright: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment how long he estimates it will take to complete all the repairs identified in the report of the inquiry into the condition of the local authority housing stock in England on the basis of existing public expenditure plans.

Mr. Winnick: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement on the estimated amount of repair and modernisation work needed to council owned residential accommodation.

Mr. John Patten: I refer the hon. Members to the replies given on 12 November by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Staffordshire (Mr. Heddle).

Mr. Cartwright: Does the Minister accept the Audit Commission's assessment that an extra £900 million will have to be added to the outstanding repair bill for council housing every year? Does he deny that at the present rate of spending it will take about 90 years to clear the nearly £19 billion-worth of defects which were revealed in the Department's report, which was published only recently? What hope can he give to the hundreds of thousands of families who are condemned to live in cold, damp, condensation-ridden substandard council housing?

Mr. Patten: I hope the hon. Gentleman recognises that the Government are the first Administration to go into this matter comprehensively and to publish a complete report. That was done as a result of the initiative of my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow). I take this opportunity of paying tribute to him for what he did as Minister for Housing and Construction.
I hope the hon. Gentleman also recognises that the net sums available have been increased this year.

Furthermore, the net amount that is being spent on repairing the public sector housing stock is about £1·25 billion this year from the current account and about £1·25 billion from the capital account. That is, I think, a record level of expenditure, and substantially more than the £500 million from the capital account that was being spent in 1979, for example.

Mr. Winnick: Does the Minister recognise that the vast amount of work that has to be done is largely the Government's responsibility because HIP allocations in the past few years have been entirely inadequate for local authorities either to repair or modernise on the scale required, and certainly inadequate to allow them to build? Is he aware that local authorities should have the financial means to allow them to carry out the work that is necessary so that they do not have to hand over estates to private property speculators and spivs?

Mr. Patten: I recognise that the hon. Gentleman has some difficult estates in his constituency, such as the Rosehill estate. That is why we sent the urban housing renewal unit to visit it on 22 November. Councils have to make their own priorities in housing expenditure. Surely their first task is to rehabilitate houses which they have in their ownership. They should have been doing that for many years. It is because of underspending by councils for decades that many housing estates have got into such an awful condition. They are now being renovated with the help of private sector money, which should be welcomed in a non-ideological way by the hon. Gentleman.

Mrs. Currie: Does my hon. Friend agree that some of the worst local authority housing was built in the 1960s, which was the last occasion on which we tried to build our way out of the problem? Does he further agree that the best thing to do now is to say never again to proposals to build large-scale, windswept council estates, in which we merely condemn people to misery, to sell off as many houses as we can and to make effective repairs to those that are left?

Mr. Patten: Large-scale solutions do not seem to have helped in the past. The right to buy is certainly helping now. I wish that councils which complain the loudest, like Southwark, which has a reported £24 million of uncollected rents, would collect their rents so that they might spend the money on keeping their housing stock in the state in which it should be kept.

Mr. Favell: Does not the abysmal state of so much local authority housing stock make a case for actively discouraging the building of any more local authority houses?

Mr. Patten: It is the first duty of councils to manage properly and to repair and rehabilitate their stock so that tenants are properly treated. The forthcoming housing and planning Bill will contain provisions to make sure that the voice of tenants is better heard, as it was in Thamesmead, where the tenants voted to leave council control because they were dissatisfied with it. That is characteristic of the GLC.

Mr. John Fraser: The Minister is talking absolute rubbish in accusing local authorities of underspending, when his Government have cut HIP allocations to local authorities by almost 70 per cent. over the last six years. We want to hear from the Minister within what time scale he will give permission for local authorities to raise money


or spend their own money to deal with the appalling backlog of housing which has been highlighted by the Association of Metropolitan Authorities and confirmed by his own Government's report. Why does he not allow them to go to the market to get money, if they want to, or to spend their own money on this essential purpose?

Mr. Patten: There was widescale agreement by all the local authority associations represented at the housing consultative council meeting last week about the fact that more work needed to be done and about the priority to be accorded to work that should be carried out before proper timetabling could be organised. While we are talking about the AMA, which speaks loudly about the need for more money, I wonder why it is spending on plush new headquarters in central London the sum of £7 million raised from its own ratepayers.

Ancient Monuments

Mr. John Mark Taylor: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement on current levels of expenditure upon the upkeep of ancient monuments and list those voluntary bodies which receive support from the Government in that work.

Mr. Tracey: In the current financial year the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission will spend £13 million on monuments in its care —an increase of 25 per cent. over the previous year —and over £7 million on grants to owners of other monuments. My Department will spend over £18 million on the upkeep of monuments in the Royal and Crown Estates. My right hon. Friend recognises the important contributions of voluntary bodies in this field and offered grants of over £250,000 towards their administrative expenses.

Mr. Taylor: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply. Can he reassure us that he considers that we are getting good value for money from voluntary organisations? Does he think that we are getting the balance right between access to and protection of historic sites?

Mr. Tracey: I think that we are getting very good value for money. In this country we have some of the finest examples of ancient monuments. This is recognised throughout the world and is evidenced by the number of visitors to them. As to granting public access to monuments, the HBMC weighs all the necessary factors in determining the strategy for each monument.

Mr. Nellist: Is the Minister aware that we have 20,000 ancient monuments in Coventry, 1,000 of them unfit for human habitation, 6,000 without hot and cold running water, baths, showers or inside toilets, and 14,000 requiring repairs of over £5,000 to make them fit for people to live in? How many more years under the Tory Government will working-class families in the centre of Coventry have to live in ancient monuments of houses over 100 years old that are unfit for human habitation?

Mr. Tracey: I suspect that the hon. Gentleman has addressed that question to the wrong Minister. Our inspectorate would certainly find it difficult to agree with him.

Local Authority Housing

Mr. Heddle: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what steps he is taking to encourage co-operative housing associations and trusts in the regeneration of housing estates.

Sir George Young: Tenant management co-operatives, housing associations and trusts have an important potential for the regeneration of rundown council estates, providing better management and giving tenants a bigger say in how their estates are run. The forthcoming housing and planning Bill will enable local authorities to delegate their housing management functions to a range of other bodies. The Department's urban housing renewal unit is encouraging local authorities to consider the scope for innovative solutions of this kind. The unit is also examining the best way to provide start-up and training resources for new tenant co-operatives.

Mr. Heddle: Does my hon. Friend agree that the recent decision democratically reached by Thamesmead tenants shows that local authority tenants would rather be masters of their own destiny than servants of the GLC? Does he further agree that the forthcoming Building Societies Bill will enable responsible and prudent private sector capital to be made available through the building society movement, pension funds and other institutions to liberalise the situation and to ensure that estates are given a breath of fresh air and a new personality?

Sir George Young: I applaud the decision of Thamesmead residents in October to reject the cosy solution of life with the local authority and to take the bold step of taking their future in their own hands. One reason for that decision was that it would give them access to private sector capital so that Thamesmead could be completed at a faster rate. My hon. Friend is quite right. There may be a message there for other parts of the country.

Mr. Rooker: Does the Minister agree that it would be a good idea if in the forthcoming housing and planning Bill, instead of delegating authority to local authorities, the Government followed Labour party policy and gave local authority tenants the statutory right to decide whether they wish to run their own estates, rather than leave it to public landlords? Is he aware that giving tenants the right to organise their own estates is fully in line with Labour party policy and that we are happy to support that, but that we will not support a Government who give power to local authorities to kick tenants out so that the houses can be done up and sold off?

Sir George Young: If the hon. Gentleman tables an amendment to that effect, it may well receive support from the Government. Anything which gives tenants greater rights is entirely in line with our tenants' charter, which seeks to give tenants greater independence from sometimes remote local authorities.

National Parks

Mr. Soames: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement on his Department's policy towards the national parks.

Mr. Waldegrave: Our policy is one of firm support, represented by the necessary financial and statutory backing.

Mr. Soames: Is my hon. Friend aware that the splendour of our national parks is regularly spoilt by a selfish minority scattering litter wholesale? Will he give strong support to the Keep Britain Tidy campaign and encourage the national parks to provide more facilities for the disposal of litter?

Mr. Waldegrave: I strongly support what my hon. Friend has said. The Department gives considerable support to the Keep Britain Tidy group, and we intend to continue that support. There has also been increased support in real terms for the Countryside Commission and in the national parks supplementary grant in recent years.

Dr. David Clark: After Okehampton, the Minister's assurances about national parks have a somewhat hollow ring. As the Bill which effectively creates a national park in Norfolk has been declared hybrid, will the Government provide time for the introduction of that Bill, which will have the support of the House?

Mr. Waldegrave: After Okehampton —in fact, that Bill is still being debated in another place —I draw entirely the opposite conclusion. The care that both Houses have taken over that matter shows that no decision affecting a national park can be taken lightly.

With regard to the Broads Bill, the problem is not so much that the Bill has been declared hybrid, as that it has been found to contain too much public matter for a private Bill. Discussions about the future of that Bill continue.

Falkland Islands

Mr. Dalyell: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement on the conditions of the civilian workers on the Falkland Islands; and if he has any evidence that the excessive consumption of drugs and alcohol is affecting the efficiency with which they are carrying out work under Government contracts.

Sir George Young: The civilian workers employed in the Falkland Islands on contracts let by my Department occupy good living accommodation close to the sites at which they work, where a wide range of sporting and other facilities are also provided. General allegations of drunkenness and drug abuse are without foundation. The work force regularly works a 70-hour, seven-day week and its efficiency can be judged by its excellent performance and productivity in maintaining the tight timetable for the construction of the major airport and associated Army facilities.

Mr. Dalyell: If press reports about drugs and whacky-baccy parties are without foundation, should they not be challenged?

Sir George Young: Although the hon. Gentleman and I attended the same school, that particular form of entertainment did not take place when I was there.

Anglo-Irish Agreement (Secretary of State's Speech)

Mr. Peter Archer: (Warley, West) (by private notice) asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to make a statement on his speech in Brussels yesterday and its effects on the implementation of the Anglo-Irish agreement.

The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. Tom King): I spoke yesterday at a lunch given jointly by the Brussels Chamber of Commerce, the British Chamber of Commerce in Belgium and the Northern Ireland Industrial Development Board. After speaking first in support of the investment opportunities in Northern Ireland, I referred also to the Anglo-Irish agreement. I expressed my firm belief that, because the principle of consent had been accepted by both Governments so that there could be no change in the status of Northern Ireland without the consent of the majority, such a change would not occur. I recognise that the way that I expressed this indicated that I considered this also to be the view of Dr. FitzGerald. I of course accept that this is not the case, and I regret that my words should have given that impression. I am grateful for this opportunity to make the position clear.
In respect of the Anglo-Irish agreement, we stand fully by our commitment to its implementation.

Mr. Archer: I thank the Secretary of State for clarifying what he said, but will he clarify it a little further by confirming expressly that he stands by article 1(c) of the agreement, and that when he assented to that article it was not his view that it was wholly artificial and unrealistic? Does he appreciate that the Opposition supported the Government in giving the agreement a chance to work precisely because it did not commit anyone to any specific position on the ultimate destiny of Ireland, did not require anyone to accept or resile from any aspiration, and does not represent winning or losing for either side? We assume that both Governments meant what they said. Does the Secretary of State appreciate that, although the House is always sympathetic with someone who admits to a slip of the tongue, it is usually wiser to confess frankly that that is what it was than to put a gloss on it?

Mr. King: The right hon. and learned Gentleman will concede that I said that I regretted that the words I used gave that impression, and I wish to make that absolutely clear. I also wish to make it absolutely clear that we stand fully by the agreement in all its particulars. I gave my firm belief in my speech in Brussels, as I have elsewhere, that the principle of consent means that a change requires the consent of the majority, and that I believe that the majority will wish to remain part of the United Kingdom. It is my fervent wish that that should be so, and I make no apology for that. I hope and believe that through the agreement we shall develop relations in such a way that both the majority and the minority —it is part of our objective that the views of the minority can be properly considered —will wish to remain under the Government of the United Kingdom.

Mr. Julian Amery (Brighton,Pavilion): I congratulate my right hon. Friend on what he said in Brussels. Does he

agree that, while it has been hard enough trying to govern the Province against the wishes of many of the minority, to attempt to govern it against the wishes of the majority and Sinn Fein would be to attempt the impossible? I hope that he will stick firmly to what he said in Brussels and in no way go back on it.

Mr. King: I thank my right hon. Friend. I stick firmly by my own beliefs —[Interruption.]—and I wish to make that absolutely clear. The regret that I expressed, I repeat, was that the phrases I used could have implied that others accepted them. Of course, we understand the ambitions and aspirations of the Government of the Republic, but my personal view is that the view of the majority will not change.

Mr. Stephen Ross: I, too, express my disappointment at the Secretary of State's choice of words, though I understand his explanation today. He well knows that interpretations will be put on his words on both sides of the border, so that he must be careful about what he says on these issues on all occasions. Is he aware that under the 1973 Act he can order a border poll at 10-year intervals? He might care to think about that in this case.

Mr. King: I am more than aware of what the hon. Gentleman said at the beginning of his question, and the events of the last 24 hours have brought that home to me clearly. I am aware of the provision to which the hon. Gentleman referred, but I see no requirement for it at the moment. I am not aware that that issue is in doubt as to what the will of the majority would be.

Mr. George Gardiner: Does my right hon. Friend accept that if his initial remarks had correctly represented the situation a great many of us would have found it much easier to support the agreement in the Division last week?

Mr. King: I am aware of my hon. Friend's view on that.

Mr. Tony Benn: Is not the real problem that to get the agreement the Government had to hint to Dr. FitzGerald that there might be a prospect of reunification, that they had to indicate that to Washington to win President Reagan's support and that they had to make statements at the same time designed to defuse loyalist opposition? Does not the real problem result from the Government having had to face two or three ways to get the agreement? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that an agreement founded on such duplicity cannot solve the problems of Northern Ireland?

Mr. King: I suppose one might have expected the right hon. Gentleman to seek to find such sinister implications in it. The agreement stands quite clearly. I was expressing my observations on Northern Ireland of what the outcome would be likely to be of the consent of the majority, and I hope that I have made that absolutely clear.

Mr. Kenneth Carlisle: Will my right hon. Friend accept that many of us feel that in his short time at the Northern Ireland Office he has been pursuing this agreement with great determination and vision, and we wish him well? Will he also accept that the principle which we have accepted —that the majority in Northern Ireland should choose —has been followed for some time by this Government?

Mr. King: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his comments. I was seeking, as I am seeking, to be understanding of the communities in Northern Ireland. Article 1 represents much more secure protection of their position than many of their political leaders are prepared to recognise. I stand by that. The acceptance by both Governments that any change in the status would come about only with the consent of the majority is a very important safeguard indeed.

Mr. David Winnick: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that in future it would be wiser to allow the Irish Government to speak for themselves, which they are certainly able to do without any assistance from him? Is he aware that we have the strong impression —whether or not it is fair to have that impression I do not know —that the person who occupies the position of Secretary of State for Northern Ireland usually has accepted the post with great reluctance and comes to the position with little understanding and knowledge of Irish problems or Irish history?

Mr. King: I have made my views clear. I was expressing my own believe in the matter. I accept entirely, as I made clear in my statement, that the way in which I expressed those remarks implied that the statement that I was making, as it were, expressed the Taoiseach's views as well, and I have made it clear that I do not speak for him.

Mr. Henry Bellingham: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the agreement will have the best chance of succeeding if he tells the truth, speaks in accordance with his conscience and is not hide-bound by public opinion in either the South or the North?

Mr. King: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. It is extraordinary that certain unionist leaders have criticised my belief that there will not be a change in the majority view about their wish to remain part of the United Kingdom. I have expressed that view strongly, and I am surprised that they feel unable to support it.

Mr. Roy Mason: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that he will have to learn that the spoken word is like a sped arrow —it cannot be recalled? The Taoiseach must be suffering from a succession of blows. The first was, "Out, out, out" by the Prime Minister. Now we have heard "Never a united Ireland" from the right hon. Gentleman. What does he have to say about co-operation now with the south? Is he aware that he has shattered the accord before the ink is dry on the agreement? What does he have to say about that to those who supported him last week in the Lobby?

Mr. King: I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman felt it necessary to make those remarks. I very much believe that they will not prove to be justified. We stand fully by the agreement and will seek to implement it, with the co-operation of the Government of the Republic of Ireland.

Mr. William Cash: Does my right hon. Friend accept that the agreement states that there will be no change in the position in Northern Ireland unless the majority wish it and that there is no expectation that such a change will take place in the immediate future?

Mr. King: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. That is absolutely correct. I was seeking to emphasise again the importance that I and, I believe, the majority of the community in Northern Ireland attach to article 1.

Mr. Merlyn Rees: As the words of article 1 are being questioned, may I bring to the notice of the Secretary of State that wise old Ulster adage which was put into a poem by Seamus Heaney: "Whatever you say, say nothing."

Mr. King: That has been repeated to me every day since I arrived in Northern Ireland. I am aware of that poem.

Sir Nicholas Bonsor: Will my right hon. Friend accept that those right hon. and hon. Members who take a different view from him about the likely long-term wishes of the people of Northern Ireland respect entirely his right to express his opinions, acknowledge that they are widely held and regret very much the damage that the action of the Opposition today is likely to do to the agreement?

Mr. King: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I have expressed sincerely my views about the significance of article 1. I stand by them and I think that they will prove to be well founded.

Mr. Eric S. Hefter: Does the Secretary of State recall that when the Prime Minister outlined the accord I asked her why the Irish Government signed it. Has not the right hon. Gentleman expressed in clear terms the position of Her Majesty's Government all the way through: that at no time has it been suggested that there will be a united Ireland? There will never be a long-term solution to the problems of Ireland until the border goes and there is a united Ireland.

Mr. King: One issue upon which the Taoiseach and I are in absolute agreement is that there is no question of the removal of the border against the consent of the people of Northern Ireland. The Taoiseach has made that clear on a number of occasions. The hon. Gentleman's solution would be singularly disastrous.

Mr. Ivor Stanbrook: Does not the incident illustrate the defective nature of the agreement in both law and in politics in that it is possible for one party to take one view of it whereas the other party takes a completely opposite view of it?

Mr. King: The agreement is clear. The question is what is the likely forecast of what will happen. I was making it clear in my speech that I believe that the consent of a majority for any change in the status will not be forthcoming. That is my forecast. I know that there are others who hold different views, but I believe that I am entitled, on behalf of the Government, to express that view.

Mr. Kevin McNamara: Nobody is objecting to the right hon. Gentleman expressing his view, which may or may not be the Government's view. The point that we are concerned about is not a mere slip of the tongue but his putting into the mouth of the Prime Minister of the Irish Republic words which would be politically damaging to any leader of any political party in the Republic. He has sought to act as a mouthpiece for the Prime Minister of the Republic of Ireland. Would not it be an idea, with his problems, that when he makes statements in future he should say whether he is speaking for himself, the Government, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Ireland, or just his own Back Benchers?

Mr. King: I sought to make it clear in my opening statement that I regretted the way in which I had phrased the remarks that I made which gave that impression.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Private notice questions are merely an extension of Question Time, and we have had 15 minutes on this one.

Mr. Archer: On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Since the Secretary of State expressed from the Government Front Bench a view which he said was his personal view, should not he make it clear to the House that it is a view which he shares with the Prime Minister?

Mr. Speaker: The Secretary of State has made his view clear.

Scottish Teachers (Pay Review)

Mr. Dennis Canavan: I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 10, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely,
the failure of the Secretary of State for Scotland to set up an independent pay review for Scottish teachers and the resultant crisis in Scottish education which will mean the closure of virtually all Scottish schools tomorrow.
It is now about 16 months since the Scottish teachers first put in a demand for an independent pay review, a legitimate demand which was backed by irrefutable evidence that the Scottish teachers would need an increase of about 40 per cent. to restore the place in the earnings table which they had following the major review of teachers' salaries by Houghton in 1974.
However, the Secretary of State's intransigent attitude has led to a prolonged dispute, a dispute which has gone on even longer than the recent miners' strike. Because of the Government's inaction, members of the Educational Insitute of Scotland, the largest Scottish teachers' union, have resorted to working to contract, which means that there is no curriculum development, no extra-curricular activities, non-co-operation with the examination board and other action.
There has also been selective strike action, which means that many pupils, including many from my constituency, have recently been put on a two-day school week rather than a five-day school week. Tomorrow the EIS is to be supported by other teachers' unions, which will mean that virtually all Scottish schools will be closed tomorrow, affecting almost 1 million school pupils in Scotland.
Therefore, I submit that the matter is important enough to deserve urgent consideration by the House. Practically every family in Scotland is affected by the deplorable failure of the Secretary of State for Scotland to ensure a fair deal for Scottish teachers, which in turn will help to safeguard the educational opportunities of young people in our schools.
The Secretary of State must bear responsibility for that situation, which is the gravest crisis in the history of Scottish education. In view of the inaction of the Secretary of State, it is up to us to apply parliamentary pressure on him. We owe it to the teachers, to the parents, and, above all, to the young people in our schools.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member has asked leave to move the Adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that he believes should have urgent consideration, namely,
the failure of the Secretary of State for Scotland to set up an independent pay review for Scottish teachers and the resultant crisis in Scottish education which will mean the closure of virtually all Scottish schools tomorrow.
I do not underestimate the importance of what the hon. Gentleman has said, but I do not consider that the matter he has raised is appropriate for discussion under Standing Order No. 10. Therefore, I cannot submit his application to the House.

Points of Order

Ms. Clare Short: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I should be grateful for advice on how I should deal with what I consider to be a serious abuse by a Minister. He has released to the press confidential correspondence between me and one of my constituents.
As you will know, Mr. Speaker, an argument has been going on for some time between the Minister of State, Home Office and several Opposition Members since he alleged, when he lost control of himself at Question Time, that Opposition Members had been abusing their powers as Members of Parliament to make representations in immigration cases. Since then, the Home Secretary has climbed down and called it only a misuse of power.
We have received a letter from the Minister requesting us to release our correspondence, saying that he simply wants examples of the problems that we face. We responded by saying that we would give permission for the correspondence to be released, without the names, only if we could debate the issue so that our side of the case could be put fairly.
Since that time, without communicating with me, the Minister has released one of those letters to the Daily Telegraph. It was referred to yesterday and part of it was printed. That must be wrong, Mr. Speaker, and I should like your help in making sure that the Minister is appropriately reprimanded.

Mr. Speaker: It is not my function to reprimand Ministers, or to advise the hon. Lady on parliamentary tactics, but there are opportunities to deal with the matter. She might try to obtain an Adjournment debate or raise the matter during business questions tomorrow.

Mr. Tony Marlow: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The main business for today is the Bill dealing with the accession of Spain and Portugal to the European Community. That arises out of the treaty of Rome. We understand that there were discussions in Luxembourg yesterday dealing with the treaty of Rome that suggested small or large amendments to the treaty. We have not had a statement from the Front Bench. There is no copy of the communiqué in the Library and no copy of it will be made available tomorrow. The treaty could change the relationship between Britain and the Community, or Spain and Portugal and the Community. How can we debate the issue of Spain and Portugal joining the Community unless we know what they are about to join?
I beseech you, Mr. Speaker, on behalf of democrats in the House, so that we can consider the subject properly, that today's business should be delayed until we have the fundamental and basic information that we need.

Mr. Speaker: I had expected a point of order from the hon. Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor) on this matter. Does he wish to say something about it?

Mr. Teddy Taylor: I wish to speak about it, Mr. Speaker, because it is directly related to today's business and I regard it as a serious matter.
We are aware that what appears to be an important agreement was made in Luxembourg last night, to make decisions on the extension of majority voting and to make changes in the treaty of Rome. We cannot discuss the

merits of those proposals on a point of order, but I feel that the rights of Back Benchers are affected by the text of the agreement not being available to hon. Members, while members of the press have apparently been fully briefed on what is happening in Luxembourg.
When I telephoned the Foreign Office this morning, I was advised that it had only a text in French and was unwilling to take the responsibility of translating it. I also contacted the London office of the European Communities Commission and was told that it did not have a copy and did not know when one would arrive. The House of Commons Library, in its conscientious way, was in touch with the Government first thing this morning saying that it had been unable to secure any text. Surely we are entitled to at least the same information as representatives of the press on vital issues affecting the rights of the House of Commons. I ask you, Mr. Speaker, as protector of Back Benchers, to make inquiries and to ensure that information on such important agreements is made available.
Finally, is it proper and fair to Back Benchers that we should be asked to proceed with a Bill to extend the membership of the Common Market by two nations when we have no information on the agreement that has already been made to extend the rights of majority voting? Obviously, as we do not know the details, we cannot say to what extent it will affect the Bill or our consideration of it. Surely it is grossly improper for us not to have the text that is directly relevant to the Bill when the agreement has been made and when the text is available to others.

Mr. David Winnick: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. You said to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Ms. Short) that the matter that she raised could be dealt with in an Adjournment debate. With the greatest respect, will you give further thought to what she said? As I understand it, correspondence that we have with Ministers concerning constituents must be confidential. If such information is disclosed to the press without our permission, it must be a matter of concern to the House. The only way that we can raise it is with you, Mr. Speaker.
If the position stated by my hon. Friend is true, as it must be, surely the Minister should be asked to explain how he has disclosed information to the press concerning an hon. Member and her dealings with a constituent. I do not believe that it can be left purely and simply to my hon. Friend to raise the matter in an Adjournment debate; it is a House of Commons matter.

Mr. Speaker: I was seeking, perhaps unwisely, to be helpful to the hon. Lady by advising her on tactics. If the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) is alleging that it is a matter of privilege, he should draw it to my attention in the usual way.

Mr. Peter Shore: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. We cannot let the matter stand as it now is. This is a very grave incident indeed. I cannot recall any occasion when hon. Members' private correspondence has been released without their permission to members of the press. I should have thought that, as the Leader of the House was present throughout these exchanges, he would take on board the suggestion that the Minister of State should make a statement to the House tomorrow about his conduct.

Mr. Nicholas Budgen: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I suggest


a compromise, which may attract you as defender of our rights? I suggest that you make private representations that the Prime Minister should address the House on the matter, because all of us wish to know whether it is her opinion that the addition of two members to the EEC will make for more efficient and more cohesive considerations in the EEC, and whether there has been a complete muddle over the past two days, with nothing but eyewash coming out at the end. If that is her view the House may not wish to agree to the treaty. I hope that you will have a private word, Mr. Speaker, and, when you have done so, will consider delaying the proceedings until we have heard the Prime Minister's view.

Mr. Speaker: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not misunderstand me when I say that I do not buy that helpful suggestion. I have sympathy with what the hon. Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor) said, but, of course, it is a matter for the Government whether papers and translations are made available. Perhaps the Minister will be able to say something about it in his speech.

Mr. Teddy Taylor: rose—

Mr. Dennis Skinner: rose—

Mr. Speaker: No. I shall take the point of order of the hon. Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor).

Mr. Taylor: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of your sympathetic and kind reply, would it be in order for you to invite the Leader of the House to make a statement, as it is a matter of only 24 or 48 hours, postponing consideration of the European Communities (Spanish and Protuguese Accession) Bill for only a day or two so that we can get the text of the agreement, which fundamentally affects the Bill?

Mr. Marlow: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. There are certain areas of policy over which the Government and the Council of Ministers have a veto. We have power over Ministers as Parliament. According to today's press, the Government have considered doing away with the veto on certain areas of their responsibility. That means that Parliament possibly will lose some of its powers. If Parliament loses some of its powers, that is a matter for primary consideration before we look at the business before the House today. I must reinforce the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor). The Leader of the House should carry out his suggestion.

Mr. Speaker: The Leader of the House is present. It is not for me to comment on that.

Mr. Skinner: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. It is rather strange that you, Mr. Speaker, have been tolerating points of order about a text from over the water. We are concerned about the texts of letters bandied about in the press, when hon. Members believed that the Minister would use them only in general terms.
The Leader of the House and you, Mr. Speaker, should discuss this matter with a view to finding an appropriate way of ensuring that justice is done. When my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Mr. Sedgemore) said that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was perverting the course of justice, was turned out of the

Chamber for doing so, within 10 days almost every man and his dog in the nation were saying, "Mr. Sedgemore got it right".
The complaint of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Ms. Short) has been dismissed as though it were of no importance. The matter is important and should be dealt with by you, Mr. Speaker, and the Leader of the House. The Minister must explain himself at the Dispatch Box.

Mr. Speaker: I did not suggest to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Ms. Short) that the matter was not important. That was not what she asked me. She asked whether I could give her some advice on the matter, and I did.

The Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. John Biffen): I hope that it will be helpful to the House if I say a few words about the two issues raised in the points of order.
On the matter raised by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Ms. Short), I am not sure whether the implication is that there is a breach of privilege. If that is her view, the remedy available is well known. I take note of your comments, Mr. Speaker, that the subject might be raised on next week's business. I realise the feeling that is invested in the topic, and I shall treat it seriously.
Regarding the issue raised by my hon. Friends the Members for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow), for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor) and for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen), I appreciate that it would be to the advantage of the House to have available the text relating to the recent European Council meeting. I am assured by my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs that it will be available shortly.
However, we live in a less than ideal world. Today we are to discuss but the Second Reading of the legislation and I would have thought that we could at least proceed with our present knowledge, and with the assurance that the document will be available for subsequent stages.

Mr. Peter Fry: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The reply of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House was unsatisfactory. On Second Reading we vote on the principle of the Bill. We are being asked to extend to the Governments of Spain and Portugal certain rights that affect Britain regarding the end of majority voting, but we do not know what they are. That fundamental point will not be met by the publication of the document after the debate.

Mr. Speaker: That is not a matter for me.

BILLS PRESENTED

DISABLED PERSONS (SERVICES, CONSULTATION AND REPRESENTATION)

Mr. Tom Clarke, supported by Mr. Gareth Wardell, Mr. John Hannam, Mr. Dafydd Wigley, Mr. Lewis Carter-Jones, Mr. Charles Kennedy, Mr. Alfred Morris, Mr. Albert McQuarrie, Mr. Dick Douglas, Mr. Jack Ashley, Ms Harriet Harman and Mr. Dennis Canavan, presented a Bill to provide for the improvement of the effectiveness of, and the co-ordination of resources in, the provision of services for people with mental or physical


handicap and for people with mental illness; to make further provision for the assessment of the needs of such people; to establish further consultative processes and representational rights for such people; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 17 January and to be printed. [Bill 20.]

OBSCENE PUBLICATIONS (PROTECTION OF CHILDREN, ETC) (AMENDMENT)

Mr. Churchill, supported by Mr. Jack Ashley, Sir Nicholas Bonsor, Mrs Virginia Bottomley, Mr. Mark Carlisle, Mr. Michael Cocks, Mr. Mark Fisher, Mr. Douglas Hogg, Mr. Greville Janner, Mr. David Lambie, Sir Ian Percival and Mr. Cyril Smith, presented a Bill to amend section 1 of the Obscene Publications Act 1959 by removing the exemption of television and sound broadcasting and by making further provision with regard to the test of obscenity in the case of an article published in a place to which persons under eighteen years of age have access or an article disseminated through the medium of television or sound broadcasting; and to make a consequential provision: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 24 January and to be printed. [Bill 21.]

CHILDREN AND YOUNG PERSONS (AMENDMENT)

Mr. Dennis Walters, supported by Sir Edward Gardner, Mr. Eric S. Heffer, Mr. Charles Morrison, Mr. Robert Rhodes James, Mr. Nicholas Baker, Mr. Richard Livsey, Mr. John Cartwright, Mr. Ivan Lawrence, Mrs. Virginia Bottomley, Ms Clare Short and Mr. Douglas Hogg, presented a Bill to amend the law in relation to children and young persons in care and to proceedings connected therewith: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 31 January and to be printed. [Bill 22.]

SAFETY AT SEA

Mr. Albert McQuarrie, supported by Mr. Alexander Pollock, Mr. Gerald Malone, Sir Walter Clegg, Sir Hector Monro, Mr. Nicholas Fairbairn, Mr. David Harris, Mr. Donald Stewart, Mrs Anna McCurley, Mr. George Foulkes, Mr. James Wallace and Dr. Norman A. Godman, presented a Bill to promote the safety of fishing and other vessels at sea and the persons in them; and for related purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 7 February and to be printed. [Bill 23.]

SURCHARGE AND DISQUALIFICATION OF COUNCILLORS (ABOLITION)

Mr. Eddie Loyden, supported by Mr. Eric S. Heffer, Mr. Dennis Skinner, Mr. Tony Benn, Mr. Stuart Holland, Mr. Dennis Canavan, Mr. Bob Clay, Mr. Robert Parry, Mr. Brian Sedgemore, Miss Joan Maynard, Mr. Terry Fields and Mr. Jeremy Corbyn, presented a Bill to abolish the system of surcharge and disqualification as it applies to members of local authorities; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 14 February and to be printed. [Bill 24.]

CIVIL PROTECTION IN PEACETIME

Sir Nicholas Bonsor, supported by Mr. Neil Thorne, Dr. John Gilbert, Sir Antony Buck, Mr. Robert Banks, Mr. Stephen Ross, Mr. Gerald Bowden, Mr. Robert Maclennan, Mr. Charles Kennedy, Mr. Nicholas Soames and Mr. Richard Shepherd, presented a Bill to enable local authorities to use their civil defence resources in connection with emergencies and disasters unconnected with any form of hostile attack by a foreign power: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 21 February and to be printed. [Bill 25.]

CRIMINAL RECORDS

Mr. Patrick Cormack, supported by Mr. Robert C. Brown, Sir Bernard Braine, Mr. Joe Ashton, Mr. Charles Morrison, Mr. Charles Kennedy, Mr. Ray Powell, Sir Nicholas Bonsor, Mr. John Hunt, Mr. Michael Cocks, Mr. Bryan Gould and Mrs. Elizabeth Peacock, presented a Bill to protect children and vulnerable adults from physical, sexual or economic abuse by permitting local authorities to have access to the criminal records of any person who seeks employment with, or offers his services to, any person or organisation providing care: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 17 January arid to be printed. [Bill 26.]

CROWN IMMUNITY

Mr. Richard Shepherd, supported by Mr. Jack Ashley, Mr. William Cash, Mr. Andrew Bowden, Sir Nicholas Bonsor, Mr. Anthony Beaumont-Dark, Mr. Jonathan Aitken, Mr. Steve Norris, Mr. John Hannam, Mr Michael Meadowcroft and Mr. Teddy Taylor, presented a Bill to amend the law relating to Crown Immunity: And the same was read the First time; arid ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 7 February and to be printed. [Bill 27.]

UNBORN CHILDREN (PROTECTION)

Mr. Ken Hargreaves, supported by Mr. David Amess, Mr. A. J. Beith, Sir Bernard Braine, Mr. Peter Bruinvels, Mr. Ian Campbell, Mr. David Evennett, Mr. Michael Hancock, Mrs. Elaine Kellett-Bowman, Dame Jill Knight, Mr. James White and Mrs. Ann Winterton, presented a Bill to make provision relating to human embryos produced by in vitro fertilisation; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 24 January and to be printed. [Bill 28.]

NEW TOWNS (ACCESS TO INFORMATION) (SCOTLAND)

Mr. Robin Cook, supported by Mr. William McKelvey, Mr. Willie W. Hamilton, Mr. David Lambie, Dr. M. S. Miller, Sir Russell Johnston, Mr. Tom Clarke and Mr Robin Squire, presented a Bill to provide for greater public access to Scottish New Town Development Corporation meetings, reports and documents subject to specified confidentiality provisions: to give Scottish New Town Development Corporations duties to publish certain information; and for related purposes; And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 17 January and to be printed. [Bill 29.]

PROTECTION OF MILITARY REMAINS

Mr. Michael Mates, supported by Mr. Robert Atkins, Mr. Nicholas Soames, Mr. Neil Thorne, Mr. John Stokes and Sir Nicholas Bonsor, presented a Bill to secure the protection from unauthorised interference of the remains of military aircraft and vessels that have crashed, sunk or been stranded and of associated human remains: and for connected purposes; And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 31 January and to be printed. [Bill 30.]

TOBACCO PRODUCTS (SALES RESTRICTION)

Mr. John Home Robertson, supported by Mr. Roger Sims, Mr. Clement Freud, Mr. Dafydd Wigley, Mr. George Foulkes, Mrs. Anna McCurley, Dr. M. S. Miller, Mr. Laurie Pavitt, Mr. Colin Shepherd, Mr. Tony Lloyd, Mr. Frank Dobson and Mr. Jeremy Hanley, presented a Bill to amend the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 and the Children and Young Persons (Scotland) Act 1937 to make it an offence to sell any tobacco or tobacco product to persons under the age of sixteen; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 31 January and to be printed. [Bill 31.]

REDUNDANCY PAYMENTS (RECIPROCITY WITH NORTHERN IRELAND) (AMENDMENT)

Mr. J. Enoch Powell, supported by Mr. Roy Beggs, Sir John Biggs-Davison, Mr. Ron Lewis, Mr. James Molyneaux, Mr. Ivor Stanbrook and Rev. Martin Smyth, presented a Bill to amend the provisions governing redundancy payments so as to secure greater reciprocity between Great Britain and Northern Ireland in respect of qualifying service: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 7 February and to be printed. [Bill 32.]

ROAD TRAFFIC REGULATION (PARKING)

Mr. Kevin McNamara presented a Bill to amend the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 in relation to parking: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 24 January and to be printed. [Bill 33.]

DRAINAGE RATES (DISABLED PERSONS)

Sir Gerard Vaughan, supported by Mr. Alex Fletcher, Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson, Mr. Fred Silvester, Mr. Patrick Nicholls, Dr. Ian Twinn, Mr. Roger Sims, Mr. Peter Bruinvels, Mr. Andrew Bowden, Mr. Gerald Howarth, Mr. Kenneth Hind and Mr. John Heddle, presented a Bill to make provision for reducing drainage rates in respect of premises used by disabled persons and invalids: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 14 February and to be printed. [Bill 34.]

HORTICULTURAL PRODUCE

Sir John Wells, supported by Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith, Mr. Mark Hughes, Mr. Richard Body, Sir David Price, Mr. Stephen Ross, Mr. Robert Atkins, Mr. Ken Weetch and Mr. David Crouch, presented a Bill to confer on authorised officers (within the meaning of Part III of the Agriculture and Horticulture Act 1964) powers in relation to the movement of horticultural produce; and for purposes connected therewith: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 24 January and to be printed. [Bill 35.]

LOCAL GOVERNMENT (ACCESS TO INFORMATION) ACT 1985 (EXTENSION)

Dr. Brian Mawhinney, supported by Mr. Robin Squire, Mr. Frank Field and Mr. Simon Hughes, presented a Bill to extend the provisions of the Local Government (Access to Information) Act 1985 to Joint Consultative Committees: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 31 January and to be printed. [Bill 36.]

INDUSTRIAL TRAINING

Sir William Clark, supported by Sir Edward du Cann, Sir Peter Hordern, Sir Philip Holland, Sir Walter Clegg, Mr. T. H. H. Skeet, Mr. Anthony Beaumont-Dark and Mr. Jonathan Aitken, presented a Bill to make provision with respect to the functions of industrial training boards: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 24 January and to be printed. [Bill 37.]

CORNEAL TISSUE

Mr. John Hannam, supported by Sir David Price, Mr. Jack Ashley, Mr. Tim Yeo, Mr. Clement Freud, Mr. Lewis Carter-Jones, Mr. Dafydd Wigley, and Mr. Jeremy Hanley, presented a Bill to permit the removal of eyes or parts of eyes for research for therapeutic purposes by certain specified persons who are not medically qualified subject to appropriate safeguards: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 17 January and to be printed. [Bill 38.]

CONSUMER SAFETY (AMENDMENT)

Mr. Conal Gregory, supported by Sir Bernard Braine, Miss Janet Fookes, Mr. Michael Meadowcroft, Mr. Allen McKay, Mr. Gordon A. T. Bagier, Mr. Kevin Barron, Mr. Tony Blair, Mr. Austin Mitchell, Dr. Keith Hampson, Mr. Graham Bright and Mr. David Sumberg, presented a Bill to make further provision with respect to the safety of consumers and others: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 7 February and to be printed. [Bill 39.]

Orders of the Day — European Communities (Spanish and Portuguese Accession) Bill [Lords]

Order for Second Reading read.

The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Sir Geoffrey Howe): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
I heard the observations of several of my hon. Friends about the timing of the Second Reading in relation to the conclusion early this morning of the European Council meeting, which I attended with my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister over the past two days. My right hon. Friend will make a statement to the House tomorrow about the outcome of the meeting. I shall arrange for the conclusions of the Council to be placed in the Library in the usual way. If those conclusions require the presentation to the House of amendments to any of the existing treaties, there will be further opportunity for debate and consideration.
This afternoon I shall address myself to the principle implicit in the Second Reading of the Bill. Six months ago I had the privilege of attending the ceremonies that took place on the same day in Lisbon and Madrid on 12 June for the purpose of signing the treaties that provided for accession to the European Community. All those present realised that we were taking part in an event of historic significance, not only for Spain and Portugal, but for Europe as a whole. That day was the culmination of eight long years of negotiation that began with the Portuguese application in March 1977 and the Spanish application in July 1977.
The House will recall that following the restoration of democracy in both their countries, Spain and Portugal looked immediately to the Community as the best guardian of their new freedom. Accession, they felt, would end their isolation from the mainstream of European developments. That certainly was the message that came through with great clarity at the ceremonies on 12 June.
Mario Soares, then the Prime Minister of Portugal, described it as
a coming in from the cold".
Felipe Gonzalez, the Prime Minister of Spain, said it was
completing the unity of our old continent and overcoming the centuries-old isolation of Spain".
For the United Kingdom and for Europe, that indeed was, and is, the principal significance of enlargement. That has long been recognised in all parts of the House. I acknowledge the interest of the hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing), the Chairman of the Scrutiny Committee, which visited Madrid last month.
The accession of Spain and Portugal will reinforce the Community, which stands internationally for progress, liberty and democracy. Twelve democracies —whose fortunes have been linked for centuries, sometimes in alliance, sometimes in conflict —are dedicating themselves to work in future in a new and enlarged partnership towards the common goals set out in the premable to the Treaty of Rome, which are to:
strengthen peace and liberty …ensure economic and social progress …lay the foundations of an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe".

Accession will serve, too, to enhance our bilateral relations with Spain and Portugal. Next year we shall celebrate the 600th anniversary of our unbroken alliance with Portugal —the Treaty of Windsor dates from 9 May 1386. [AN HON. MEMBER: "Was the right hon. and learned Gentleman there?"]—I claim no responsibility for the treaty. However, earlier this year I was privileged to attend Her Majesty the Queen and His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh on their memorably successful royal visit to Portugal.
Our links with Spain date from the Confederation of Toledo in 1254, although they have been interrupted from time to time since then. This year, 1985, is the 10th anniversary of the enthronement of the King of Spain. I am sure that the whole House will share my pleasure at the fact that in 1986, the year of Spain's accession, we shall be receiving the King and Queen of Spain on a state visit to this country.

Mr. Ivor Stanbrook: Does my right hon. and learned Friend think that it is compatible with the admission of Spain to the European Community that that country should retain restrictions on the use of Gibraltar airfield by British military aircraft? What purpose do those restrictions serve, when Spain is supposed to be a friend and an ally?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: As my hon. Friend knows, those restrictions have been in place for some time. The discussion of the future of those restrictions was one of the things that flowed from the Brussels and Geneva agreements entered into earlier this year. Of course, the fact that both Spain and the United Kingdom are now members of the European Community will facilitate a discussion on differences of that nature.
It is clear, of course, that the Community of Twelve will be very different from the original Community of Six. Enlargement has acted as a catalyst for reform. It has forced the Community to take a long, hard look at its aims, its international role, its procedures, the way decisions are taken and the way that it spends its resources. Much of the drive for yesterday's successful summit meeting in Luxembourg was inspired in that way.
Once, it was only the United Kingdom that argued for reform. Now —and, indeed, yesterday —there is a general readiness to grapple with the Community's problems and a recognition of the need to do more to promote the right conditions for our industries, which will help create jobs. There is still a great deal to be done. but, largely at our instigation, work has been set in hand.
We need to promote the right conditions for our industries, and we are doing just that. A programme is under way for the urgent completion of the Common Market. The bureaucratic obstacle to the movement of goods is being dismantled. Under the Fontainebleau agreement we have dealt with the problem of budget imbalances, so that the United Kingdom will pay only 7 per cent. net at most of any additional expenditure.
In high technology, we have begun to build better prospects for the Community of tomorrow. Esprit, a five-year research programme in information technology, is under way. The Eureka concept, which will help us the better to compete with the United States and Japan, is developing quite well.
With Europe, too, we are successfully contending for the future of the open trading system, which is crucial for


prosperity and jobs. Only last week, the Community, with our help, played a major role in bringing about agreement in Geneva on the launch of a new GATT round.

Mr. Tam Dalyell: The right hon. and learned Gentleman said that the Eureka project was developing quite well. However, there have been numerous reports in the press of hitches, difficulties and snags. Are those reports without foundation?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: I think that there is almost nothing in human existence that is not the subject of such reports. What I said is true. The project is working and developing increasingly well. However, like every other project or programme, differences are bound to arise from time to time.
A different topic, which is not the scene of universal tranquillity, is that of agricultural surpluses. They are being brought under control, but it is a difficult process, not just in the Community or just in Britain, but in the United States and other countries as well. Milk production quotas have been put in place in the Community, and a reformed wine regime has been agreed. We shall continue to fight, as we must, for a restrictive price policy to bring Community prices more into line with those in the outside world.
These are worthwhile achievements, and they must take their place alongside the striking Community success that we are marking today —the conclusion of the complex negotiations for the entry of Spain and Portugal.

Mr. Eric Forth: Does my right hon. and learned Friend believe that the accession of two countries which are much more dependent upon agriculture than are the existing members of the Community will make the reform of the CAP easier, or more difficult, to achieve?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: I suspect that it will make the management of the problem —which extends far beyond the frontiers of the Community —of the surplus generating capacity of an increasingly technological industry easier, rather than more difficult. I say that because many people speak as though the Community has created the problems, whereas its existence will help to solve them. The problems of surpluses affect agriculture in every country, with the exception of the Soviet Union. I do not believe that the enlargement of the Community will make the problems more difficult to solve.

Mr. Nicholas Budgen: rose—

Sir Geoffrey Howe: I shall not give way. I shall listen to my hon. Friend's speech with great interest, as I always do when I have that opportunity.
There is a long way to go if the enlarged Community is to make the most of its potential. Already the shape of the agenda for the enlarged Community is clear. It is designed to meet the needs of the people of the enlarged Community, not only for this decade, but to the end of the century. It concentrates on technology, on getting value for money, and on creating real prospects for jobs. Success in meeting those challenges will be the best welcome that we can give to Spain and Portugal and their peoples. That is the purpose of the Bill before the House.
The Bill will incorporate into the law of this country the terms of the accession treaty. When ratified, it will permit the entry into effect of the revised own resources decision.

Mr. Alfred Morris: The right hon. and learned Gentleman spoke of the importance of this legislation for relations between this country and Spain. He said nothing about the important issue of the pensions that will be payable to Spaniards who worked in Gibraltar up to the time when the frontier was closed. He must know that it is an issue of the first importance to the Government of Gibraltar. It could cost them £7 million a year for the next 15 years. Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman give them any sort of assurance before he concludes his speech?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: The right hon. Gentleman was right to raise that question. It is clear that the financing of those obligations is a matter of interest. The Government will make a significant contribution for the first year from the date of Spain's accession to assist Gibraltar to meet its obligations while negotiations continue about future years. I shall say something more about Gibraltar later.
I come now to the central points of the Bill. Many members of the existing Community were worried about the difficulties which Spanish and Portuguese accession might cause for one or other sector of their economies, but we all recognised the political importance of success in the main negotiations and the political consequences of failure. Our common aim was to negotiate terms which gave time for the necessary adaptation. and which established a fair balance between the interests of the existing Community and those of the acceding member states. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister told the House, the terms
are very satisfactory for the United Kingdom".—[Official Report, 2 April 1985; Vol. 76, c. 1063.]
I believe that they are also good for Spain and Portugal.
There were, of course, special problems to be considered. Trade in industrial products is one example. For at least 200 years, and perhaps for even longer than that, there has been a history of problems of one kind or another in our trade with Spain. Successive attempts at treaties of commerce have not been able to solve the problem. The barriers have not been all one way. Now, with Spain a member of the Community, those barriers will at last come down. The high tariffs that were allowed under the 1970 agreement between the Community and Spain are to be cut by more than half after the end of only three years' transition, and phased out altogether by the end of seven years. Special arrangements have been made for car exports to Spain, and Portugal's tariffs, which are in any case lower, will be progressively reduced over the same seven-year period. Spain has already passed legislation to introduce value added tax from the date of accession. Portugal is properly allowed a derogation.
The opening of this new market of 50 million domestic consumers offers major opportunities to our exporters. They claim that they should not wait until the end of the relatively short transitional period. If they do not act now, I have no doubt that their competitors will do so. I am sure that the whole House will wish to join me in urging our business community to make the most of this new opportunity.

Mr. Forth: My right hon. and learned Friend mentioned VAT. He will be aware that the Greeks have


recently been allowed to postpone yet again their introduction of VAT, even though they entered the Community in 1981. Is my right hon. and learned Friend any more confident that Spain, and more particularly Portugal, will be able to hold to their programme and timetable better than the Greeks have done since 1981? Can he give us some expression of his confidence in this matter?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: Spain has already agreed to do this from the date of accession and, indeed, has already passed legislation to that effect. Portugal has been allowed a derogation for three or four years from now. I think that my hon. Friend will know that derogations of that kind are not usual, and that in most cases the timetable set is fulfilled. I do not think that any country is innocent of having failed to hit such target dates from time to time.
Agriculture was, of course, one of the most difficult parts of the negotiations. Spain is highly competitive in some sectors, and existing member states were worried about the effect of competition on their own producers. In the result, the transitional arrangements for the most sensitive products, such as fruit and vegetables, are to last for 10 years. That gives the fullest possible protecion to Community horticultural producers, including our own. On the other side of the account, both Spain and Portugal are deficit producers for milk, beef and cereals, so that should offer attractive opportunities to exporters in this country as tariffs are phased out.

Mr. Anthony Nelson: My right hon. and learned Friend will be aware that many of us have strong constituency interests in horticulture. There are fears about the viability of some enterprises because of the import of tomatoes in particular. If, during the transition period, the problems of our tomato growers become increasingly apparent, given the unfair competition from the Dutch sector, can my right hon. and learned Friend assure us that the Government will consider providing further financial support to enable our growers to switch to other horticultural products and to compensate them for the much lower heating costs that obtain in the Iberian peninsula?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: My hon. Friend raises a rather different and wider question, which has been considered from time to time by Governments in different contexts. At this stage, all I can say is that the additional transitional period of 10 years was chosen specifically to allow problems of this kind to be considered.
I was dealing with the opportunities available to British agriculture exporters. Special arrangements have been made to help Portugal adjust to the common agricultural policy, and she will receive significant aid to help her develop the necessary agricultural infrastructure.
I reported to the House on 28 November that the Foreign Affairs Council had agreed a mandate for negotiations to ensure that the agricultural trade flows of the Community's Mediterranean partners were maintained.
We have been able to preserve the balance of fishing opportunities under the common fisheries policy. Spain and Portugal are incorporated into the common fisheries policy for its duration. With certain limited exceptions, Spanish and Portuguese access to Community waters is limited to those areas and species to which they currently have access. The number of Spanish and Portuguese

vessels fishing in Community waters will continue to be strictly controlled and subject to strict monitoring and reporting requirements. Effective fishing opportunities for United Kingdom fishermen remain undiminished.
Spain and Portugal will build up agricultural receipts only gradually. To ensure that during the first few years of membership Spain should be in rough budgetary balance and Portugal a modest net beneficiary, the Community agreed that both countries should be refunded, at a rate diminishing progressively over the transitional period, a substantial percentage of their contributions —the same treatment as Greece received in the equivalent years after her accession.
It was always the case that enlargement would entail at least some cost to the Community, including the United Kingdom. But, as the House knows, the arrangements negotiated at Fontainebleau by the Government ensure that the United Kingdom will pay only 7 per cent. net of any additional costs.
The Commission estimates that at the end of transition the costs of enlargement may be about 0·1 per cent. of the Community's VAT base. On 1986 figures, this would be equivalent to 1,800 mecu, or about £1,080 million per annum. Under the Fontainebleau arrangement, this means that there will be a United Kingdom contribution of roughly £75 million a year at the end of transition.
The right hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris) asked about one aspect of Gibraltar. I said earlier that that was one area in which Spanish accession would bring a new dimension to our relations with Spain. Indeed, a new era began a year ago when I announced the Brussels agreement to the House. On 5 February of this year the Lisbon agreement was finally implemented, and Spain opened the frontier with Gibraltar. Gibraltar and Spain both instituted in advance certain reciprocal Community arrangements. Since then, Gibraltar has been able to judge for herself what the impact of Spanish accession will be.
The impact of the Franco era is not easily forgotten, but, happily, some of the old fears and hostility are receding before the policies of Senor Gonzalez' Government. Certainly the Gibraltar economy has received a major shot in the arm.

Mr. J. F. Pawsey: I wish to return to the point raised by the right hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris) on the payment of pensions to those workers from Spain who formerly worked in Gibraltar. My understanding is that the Spanish Government, when they closed the border, effectively ensured that these people could no longer work. Despite that, Gibraltarians are expected to pay for the pensions of those people. As the right hon. Member for Wythenshawe said, it is some £7 million per annum over a period of about 15 years. That is a substantial sum—£105 million in total. For the 30,000 people of Gibraltar to zany that burden is clearly unfair. Although my right hon. and learned Friend said that a substantial portion of that sum would be made up by Her Majesty's Government, I think that the Gibraltarian Government are looking for a rather better deal than that from us.

Sir Geoffrey Howe: This is a long and complicated story. It cannot be denied that over the years the Government and the people of Gibraltar have received


substantial help from this country, and rightly so, and the future pattern in that regard is always open to consideration.
With regard to pensions, it must be remembered that the workers in question contributed to the Gibraltar pension scheme for a number of years and, like other workers who contributed in the same period, are entitled to benefits which match those payable to people who live in Gibraltar. That is the pattern with which we are dealing, and I have nothing to add to what I said earlier about this topic.

Mr. David Young: Will the right hon. Gentleman clarify the matter?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: I am afraid not at this stage. I do not want to get into a long debate about this aspect of Gibraltar in the context of the wider subject with which we are dealing.
The Gibraltar Government have already completed all stages of their Bill to give effect to Spanish and Portuguese accession. I have no need, in this or any other context, to remind the House of our commitment to respect the wishes of the people of Gibraltar as enshrined in the preamble to the Gibraltar Constitution Order 1969. We look forward to continued fruitful collaboration between Gibraltar and her neighbours in the campo.
Enlargement has helped the Community address its own future and to decide on the steps needed to enable us collectively to play our full role internationally, politically and economically. The enlarged Community will be the largest trading entity the world has known. It will therefore be well placed to defend the interests of the open trading system, on which our economic future depends, against the current wave of protectionist pressures.
Enlargement marks the arrival of democratic Spain and democratic Portugal as our partners in Europe in the widest sense, in the Community and NATO as well, where we hope that Spain, like Portugal, will assume her full place. It represents a commitment by nations with a shared history, which have suffered from the devastation of successive wars, to build together a new Europe in which the conflicts of the past are no longer possible. It represents, in the words of the Treaty of Rome, a commitment to common action to eliminate the barriers that divide Europe and for the pooling of resources to strengthen peace and liberty. I have every confidence in commending the Bill to the House, and that I shall be able to tell Senor Ordonez, my Spanish colleague, when I see him in Madrid tomorrow, that the House joins me in giving a very warm welcome to Spain and Portugal.

Mr. George Robertson: The official Opposition have always made clear our support for the accession of both Spain and Portugal to the European Community. Therefore, we are glad to support the Second Reading of the Bill. Accession of these two countries, bringing the Community's membership to 12, makes it more truly European and complete. It will also give reinforcement to the democratic systems in both nations, which have recently escaped the grip of Right-wing totalitarianism. Neither country has the maturity, economically or politically, that other members of the Community share, and we have an obligation as their

neighbours and friends, as well as those who encouraged the end of Fascism, to assist with their full integration into western European society.
Both countries have, against substantial pressures, tightened the democratic grip, but we who preach the merits of political choice over dictatorship must also mean it when we have a chance to help those who need it in keeping to the democratic road. Rhetoric will not protect democracy, but a proper recognition of what we can do to assist these nations will be of inestimable value.

Mr. Forth: I am following the hon. Gentleman's argument closely, and I am aware that one of the principal arguments in favour of the accession of Spain and Portugal is that of democracy. However, has the Labour party made any estimates of the cost in jobs, taxes or moneys lost to the British citizens of this protection of democracy? Will he be giving us a bill for the marvellous benefit that he is setting out?

Mr. Robertson: I shall be coming to the hon. Gentleman's special interest —the cost of accession —and I shall be making my own criticism, but that does not negate the welcome that I and my hon. Friends give to the fact that Spain and Portugal will be joining the European Community. There is no price, whether it is measured in terms of money or cost, to be set against the fact that countries under the grip of totalitarianism are now in a pluralist democracy again.
Accession will have profound implications for the European Community and direct effects on this country, and we would be wise to give careful thought and attention to that instead of generally welcoming the new members and the new trade that such a move might bring us. Accession is already having an effect on the routine but damaging prices in the Community budget. It will have a dramatic and so far uncalculated effect on the agricultural policy of the EEC, and it will increase the agricultural bias already too obvious within the Community.
In bringing in two much poorer nations, accession will change the balance in priorities and will yet again move the Community's centre of gravity from the northern industrialised states to the agriculture-dominated Mediterranean south of Europe. The effects on the regional and social policies of the Community will, in many cases, directly affect this country for the worst, and the impact of accession on the budget will also have an effect on our domestic programme. All these issues have been insufficiently debated and discussed in the Community and have not been debated fully in the House.
Those factors make it doubly unsatisfactory that we find that this important and indeed historic debate is squeezed into a three-hour period. It is an inadequate and contemptuous way in which to treat such a crucial and, for this country, far-reaching issue. The European Community may not be the most stimulating and exciting of the affairs debated in the House, and it may attract fewer hon. Members than most subjects, but we have a duty to examine, in adequate time, issues that will have such an important effect on us and on our trading relationships.
The most important aspect of accession will be the effect on agricultural policy and, as this policy dominates the European Community, there is no doubt that this will have a most penetrating effect on the way in which the Community is run.
The provisions for Spain and Portugal in the draft 1986 budget are clearly inadequate. The first draft from the


Council of Ministers had no provision for the accession of Spain and Portugal. The latest version still seems to be incapable of delivering on the assurances and guarantees given to Spain and Portugal during the negotiations, which regarded them as being net beneficiaries in their initial years. Either this is to be an additional commitment superimposed on the already overstrained budget, which may at the moment be being thrown out by the European Parliament in Strasbourg, or the commitments that have been made will be reneged on. If they are, the two poorest nations in the Community will find themselves net contributors. Although a merry-go-round of Treasury Ministers have represented us in the Community budget negotiations, not one, as they have paraded in and out of the European Community, has been able to shed any more light on the bizarre intricacies that the Budget Council imposes on the Community.
On top of all this, the agricultural consequences of accession are still unresolved. In protocol 25 of the treaty, the 10 nations recognise that an increase in Portuguese agricultural activity and hence production will follow from accession, but they maintain that it will be accompanied by agricultural discipline. How can this be possible? Would the Minister of State care to explain the use of mirrors by the Foreign Secretary? He managed to say that he recognised the effect that increased production by Spain and Portugal would have on surpluses, but today he told us that the management of the surpluses would be made easier.
Given that surpluses are one of the most challenging and daunting problems facing Britain and the Community as a whole, how on earth will increases in the production of citrus fruit and tomato juice by Spain and Portugal make management of the crisis easier? As we had no answer from the Foreign Secretary, perhaps the Minister of State, in his usual elegant fashion, will give us a demonstration of his skill at making speeches without his officials' notes in front of him.
There is no explanation for the Secretary of State's use of mirrors, because the two items of increased production and managing the surpluses are incompatible. The already chronic problem of surpluses is bound to be exacerbated. This, taken with the existing shortages in the structural fund —the 1986 budget freezes them at the previously inadequate levels, which is a cut in real terms—puts a relentless and intolerable pressure on the difficulties that the Community has already with the common agricultural policy. We learn from this week's discussions that the cuts in the regional and social funds will have a direct effect upon the United Kingdom as a beneficiary of the funds.
Three recent reports have underlined the crisis in the CAP which, in the absence of action, accession is bound to make worse. The first and most weighty report was that of the House of Lords Select Committee which said about the CAP:
Left unreformed it could break down. If this were to happen the Committee fear that the existence of the EEC itself would be in jeopardy.
It continued:
if the reform of the CAP is delayed once again, its excessive demands on available resources will hinder the Communities' economic recovery.
This report, by worthy Peers sympathetic to Europe, estimated the cost of the CAP to be as high as £20 billion. It predicted that cereal stocks would rise to more than 89 million tonnes by 1991 compared with the present 25 million tonnes, and that Spain and Portugal's accession

would cause further strains. It suggested that the CAP had not resulted in aid for poor farmers who needed it. The Committee recommended that the Community should move to a policy of restricting prices and establishing realistic thresholds combined with direct economic support for those farmers in difficulties. It concluded:
The chief obstacle to the success of a prices policy is a lack of political courage to enforce it.
The House deserves to know, as we debate this historical milestone, whether the Government have the political courage to force changes in the CAP which alone, according to the Foreign Secretary, will make the accession of Spain and Portugal a guarantee for the future.
The conclusions of the report by the Comptroller and Auditor General and the European Commission's Green Paper make it clear that the existing need for immediate discussion and action fundamentally to reform the CAP will be made more urgent by the accession of Spain and Portugal.
We have heard little or nothing from the Foreign Secretary about the implications of accession on agricultural sectors and on manufacturing sectors relying on light industry and textiles, for example, which have been badly battered by far eastern competition. Surely that is worth a mention.
Why have we heard nothing about the renewed need for a regional policy with bite, which will arise from accession? The hard financial facts are that an adequate social and regional policy with funding appropriate to provide the structural retraining, job creation and redistributive role intended, which is doubly necessary today, is nowhere matched by the resources made available. The payments this year will be cut as the demands on the regional and social funds increase. Added to this topsy-turvy contradiction is the financing of the integrated Mediterranean programmes. The Government's White Paper, Cmnd. 9627, tells us blandly that accession will not have an effect on existing structural funds, and much the same statement appears in the explanatory memorandum. After last week's Budget Council, how can that possibly be true? How can the new demands of the integrated Mediterranean programme be met without affecting existing structural funds? How will accession affect trading with Latin America? Will not Spain's and Portugal's inevitable shift to the Lome countries, as a result of accession, make the debt crisis of Latin America worse? What will happen about the free movement of migrant workers and other workers as a result of accession? Lack of time will prevent discussion of a series of other issues.
The impact of accession on Britain will be of considerable importance, but on this we have heard least from the Foreign Secretary. The social and regional funds are of major importance to projects in Britain and it is not sufficient for Ministers to say that, because of the Fontainebleau arrangement and the rebate mechanism, the amount of money spent from the regional and social funds in Britain is of academic importance. Surely no one believes that it is a substitute for direct aid to our poorest areas for extra cash to be handed to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Any dissolution or diminution of the social and regional funds which affects Britain's poorest areas must be of consequence and must be considered by the House.
We know that the changes in the guidelines for social fund availability will, at a time of high unemployment,


reduce the amount available to the United Kingdom from £350 million to £280 million, a real cut of 25 per cent. The new guidelines laid down by the Government for their own regional policy have led to a cut in the amount of money available in the social fund. We know that under the regional fund, the integrated Mediterranean programmes involved a £3·9 billion package for that region, of which £1·45 billion was to come out of existing structural funds in the Community. The Community budget cannot accommodate the cost of accession, so how can it conceivably accommodate the extra demand that is being imposed upon it?
The start of this debate was marked by genuine and justified complaints that the House and the country were insufficiently aware of the details of the agreement reached last night in Luxembourg. If major changes have been made to the way in which the Community operates and how decisions are arrived at, we deserve to have the fullest details before us in a debate of such historic importance. It is unacceptable for the Foreign Secretary to promise that the details will be available tomorrow. The details are needed today.

Sir Geoffrey Howe: They are now available in the Vote Office.

Mr. Robertson: The generosity of the Foreign Secretary, appearing an hour into the debate like Santa Claus with the finally deciphered documents, hardly assists the ability of the House, and especially the Opposition —[Interruption.] It would be doubly difficult for me to get to the Vote Office and back while addressing the House. Hon. Members on both sides of the House deeply resent the way in which the debate has been handled.
We welcome the accession of Spain and Portugal, and we wish them well. They will have their problems in adapting to the European Community, but these will be nothing as we all come to terms with a Community of 12. Like so many problems which the Community tackles, this has been embarked upon with inadequate preparation, incomplete financing and the already mighty burden of agriculture heavier on top of us all. We cannot turn our back on Spain and Portugal but at some time—

Mr. David Young: rose—

Mr. Robertson: —the arithmetic of the European Community will have to be reserviced and the common agricultural policy subjected to surgery, or there will be precious little Community for Spain and Portugal —or the other 10—to be part of.

Mr. Albert McQuarrie: I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for calling me to participate in the debate at such an early stage. I apologise to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and to the occupants of both Front Benches for the fact that I shall have to leave the Chamber immediately after I have spoken to attend an important Back-Bench Members' Committee.
I welcome the Bill because I believe that it is in the best interests of the European Community. It will bring considerable industrial and commercial trading oppor-tunities between Spain, Portugal and the United Kingdom. That will apply especially to fish processing and

agriculture products, which are two of the main sources of employment in my constituency. I hope that British support of Spain's entry into the Community will encourage that country to take its full part in working with NATO.
The Bill received welcome approval from the other place. Several of their Lordships, including my right hon. and noble Friend the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office—

Mr. George Robertson: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. You will have heard the Foreign Secretary say a short time ago that vital documents on the outcome of the summit which ended last night were available in the Vote Office. My hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) has been to the Vote Office and it seems that the only documents available on this issue are glossy pamphlets which bear the date May 1985. The guarantee of the Foreign Secretary has not yet been delivered.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): I shall make arrangements for inquiries to be made.

Mr. McQuarrie: I was saying that when the Bill passed through another place it received welcome approval. Several of their Lordships, including my right hon. and noble Friend the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, spoke about the dependent territory of Gibraltar. My noble Friend the Minister of State reiterated, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary was kind enough to do this afternoon, the Government's adherence to the preamble to the Gibraltar constitution on sovereignty. My right hon. and learned Friend's reiteration of the Government's adherence to the preamble will be welcomed greatly by the Government and people of Gibraltar.
In this short debate I shall concentrate on a serious problem which has already been mentioned by my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary and the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson)—the payment of pensions to the former Spanish workers who were employed in Gibraltar until the closing of the Spanish frontier gates in July 1969. From information which I have received —this has been mentioned by the right hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris)—the total cost of the payment of pensions to these Spanish workers will be £7 million per annum for 15 years. My right hon. and learned Friend has said that the Spanish workers contributed towards their pensions, but until July 1969 they were contributing only four shillings in old money per week while their employers were contributing five shillings. That does not relate to £7 million per annum for the next 15 years.
The hon. Member for Bolton, South-East (Mr. Young) tabled a written question in which he asked the Foreign and Commonwealth Office who would be responsible ultimately for the payment to former Spanish workers in Gibraltar of pensions which were frozen as a result of the Spanish Government's action in closing the frontier. The Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield (Mr. Eggar), replied:
Under Gibraltar law and under EC regulations, responsibility for payments of pensions rests with the Gibraltar Government. We are having discussions with the Gibraltar Government about how this responsibility will be met.—[Official Report, 2 December 1985; Vol. 88, c. 38.]


A short time ago my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary told us that the Government are in consultation with the Gibraltar Government, who will make a substantial contribution to the payment of the Spanish workers' pensions. I shall quote from a press release which the Chief Minister of Gibraltar, Sir Joshua Hassan, issued yesterday. It states:
I have just been informed of the answer given by Mr. Tim Eggar to a parliamentary question by Mr. David Young regarding the ultimate responsibility for the payment of social security pensions to Spanish nationals working in Gibraltar before the closure of the frontier by the Spanish Government.
Gibraltar Government Ministers have made it clear to the British Government that, while Gibraltar is prepared to meet its moral responsibility in full, and has accordingly offered to contribute the total amount paid into the social insurance fund by Spanish workers, plus accrued interest (a total of some £4,500,000), their view is that the ultimate responsibility lies with the British Government.
If the Gibraltar Government are unable to pay that sum, which is equal to 12 per cent. of their budget, the Spanish workers could go to the European Court. However, it would be the British Government and not the Gibraltar Government who would be taken to the court. Therefore, the British Government should address themselves to the issue of ultimate responsibility.
Sir Joshua Hassan added that the Spanish Government should have some responsibility. The press release states:
We reiterated previous oral suggestions that the Spanish Government might be asked to acknowledge some responsibility in this matter.
The latest communication to London on this issue was dated 29 November.
The press release continues:
Secondly, it has been recently alleged in Gibraltar that this matter has been left too late. In fact, it was raised by me"—
that is, Sir Joshua—
with Sr. Oreja in Strasbourg in 1977 and …more particularly, it has been the subject of correspondence with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and of meetings with Southern European Department ODA officials, since August 1984 and throughout 1985.
I think that I have said enough to show that it should not be the responsibility of 30,000 dependent territory citizens in Gibraltar, who have been acclaimed, rightly, as more British than the British —they fought for the right to remain British citizens, and they are prepared to accept a moral responsibility for contributing £4·5 million —to pay Spanish workers large sums in the face of the actions of Franco and the present regime in Spain, who are demanding that £7 million per annum should be paid for 15 years by people who saw some of their compatriots imprisoned by the Spanish for 16 years. Why should they be asked to do so? Why does not my right hon. and learned Friend go to the Spanish Government and say, "You have a moral responsibility to pay part of the £7 million. You were responsible for closing the border and not the British Government. The closing of the gates was not the responsibility of the Gibraltar Government. Our gates remained open for 16 years when these people were imprisoned." It is not good enough to say, "We shall give consideration to the payment of £7 million per annum and endeavour to help."
My right hon. and learned Friend is well aware that the offer that he has made to Gibraltar is inadequate to meet the obligation. The Spanish Government should accept some form of liability. It should be realised that Gibraltar is not the sole beneficiary of the opening of the border. The town of La Linea was derelict when Franco closed the border and it has benefited greatly from the opening of the

frontier gates by the Spaniards. The town having enjoyed that benefit, the Spanish Government have a moral responsibility.
It is not good enough for the Government to say that they are doing something to meet the problem of the payment of £7 million per annum. No one in Gibraltar can accept that approach. The British taxpayer should not he asked to subsidise £105 million over 15 years. When my hon. Friend the Minister of State replies, I ask him to tell us exactly what the Government propose to do to ensure that the Spanish Government honour their commitment.

Mr. Michael Cocks: I should like to put at rest the mind of my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson). He is diligent in his preparations and unusually, because he has been so busy working on his speech, he has overlooked the fact that the Prime Minister has very considerately put on the Order Paper a motion to be moved at 10 o'clock to the effect that
the European Communities (Spanish and Portuguese Accession) Bill [Lords]…may be proceeded with, though opposed. until any hour.
I am glad to be able to reassure any right hon. and hon. Members who wish to take part in the debate that they have plenty of time.

Mr. Tony Marlow: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I apologise to the right hon. Member for Bristol, South (Mr. Cocks) for butting in on his speech, but this load of paper has just been deposited in the Library. It is scarcely legible and there are only three copies. It purports to be a representation of what went on in Luxembourg yesterday. Amongst other things, it says that various matters that have been subject to unanimity are now subject to a qualified majority vote. It says —if I understand it rightly and it is possible that I do not, not because of my lack of understanding but because of the way it is written —that we should harmonise our indirect taxes—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am not sure what point the hon. Gentleman is seeking to raise. Is he raising the question of the availability and legibility of the document, or the content of it? The content is more a matter for a speech in the debate, not an intervention.

Mr. Marlow: I am deeply concerned, Mr. Deputy Speaker, about the availability and legibility of the document. I am also concerned about the fact that this document, which is hardly available and hardly legible, states within it, so far as I can understand, that we should-harmonise our excise duties, our currency, and our VAT with these two countries. We are having a debate, but no one in the Chamber realises that by 1992 we should have the same VAT rate as Spain and Portugal—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is seeking to make an intervention, If so, it is hardly relevant to the point that was being raised by the right hon. Member for Bristol, South (Mr. Cocks). If, on the other hand, the hon. Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) is raising a point of order, the matters to which he is referring are not for me to deal with.

Mr. Cocks: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. While I continue my speech, the Government business managers might consider whether both points would be met by adjourning the House until


7 o'clock and then proceeding after 10 o'clock with the full debate, with the full text of the document available for as many people as may wish to have it.
I have got the document to which I think the Foreign Secretary referred. I was hoping that it would be a lifebelt, but it is barely a pair of flabby water wings. I have looked through it, but I cannot find the matters in which I am interested.
The Foreign Secretary was fulsome and euphoric in his introduction. I wondered how long the padding would go on. Eventually he mentioned jobs and the need to promote our industries and said that we were doing just that. I was glad that he came down to earth. This debate is about the principle of the Bill. It was said earlier in answer to the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Fry) that matters of detail could be debated on the remaining stages, but experience leads me to suggest that the remaining stages of the Bill will be emaciated. Therefore, if we want to raise points, we should do so on Second Reading.
The matter on which I wish to spend a few minutes concerns a constituency interest which I have already referred to in the debate on the Queen's Speech —the takeover bid for Harvey's wine firm by Elders. A sort of Antipodean skinhead is mounting what is called a leveraged takeover —something new in this country. The Government reply at that time was that the matter would be taken seriously. I hope that it is still the case.
There is a long tradition in my constituency and in other places in the United Kingdom of bottling wines that are imported in bulk. The quality is high, there is continuing investment and quite a few people are employed. In recent years there has been a move by producers to try to get the wine bottled in the country of origin. I warn the Government against that, particularly in regard to sherry and port from Spain and Portugal. Approximately 30 million litres of port and sherry were bottled in this country last year. If it were decided by either the Spanish or the Portuguese authorities that those products should be bottled only in the country of origin, it would mean a loss of 500 jobs in the bottling trade alone, of which 200 to 300 would be in Bristol, and of a similar number of jobs in the packaging trade. That is not a small matter; it is vital.
Apart from the effects of that on our domestic economy, we must consider also another matter that has arisen recently, the production of polluted wine. It has been found that some continental wines have been tampered with. Anti-freeze has been added to tone them up and give them body. It is known that such wine is poisonous and I am glad that the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food was recently able to reassure me about the steps the Government are taking to ensure that that poisonous plonk does not come into this country.
If wine is imported in bulk and bottled here, it is easier to detect by sampling whether there has been adulteration or pollution of the wine. That is another reason why the Government should be firm on the matter.

Mr. Matthew Parris: Can the right hon. Gentleman confirm that there is no suggestion in what he is saying that wine imported from Spain has been or is likely to be polluted?

Mr. Cocks: I am pleased to say that no cases have yet come to light.

Mr. Parris: What is the right hon. Gentleman talking about then?

Mr. Cocks: I do not think any cases involving Spain or Portugal have been recorded of wines which have been poisoned with anti-freeze, but I am anxious that the British public should be protected. If they want anti-freeze, they should get it from garages and not from off licences or supermarkets.

Mr. Eric Deakins: Were not a large number of people in Spain poisoned recently because of the sale of adulterated olive oil?

Mr. Cocks: I believe that that is so. I think that mineral oil was added to cooking oil with disastrous consequences that are still being felt.

Mr. Marlow: By now the right hon. Gentleman will be aware that, whereas in the past we have been permitted to veto any change in certain internal European transactions, now changes will probably be made by majority vote. If he thinks that the health and safety regulations governing the production of food in Spain are not what we would find acceptable in this country, that must give him cause for concern when later this evening he is considering whether to vote for or against the measure.

Mr. Cocks: The hon. Gentleman is tempting me. I am not known for my wide-ranging interest in foreign affairs. I do not believe that I have ever spoken on the matter in the House except during the five-day debate on the great decision that we had to make in 1971. On that occasion I spoke late at night. I have not taken much active interest in foreign affairs. I am not enamoured of the Common Market. I was one of the handful of Members who took part in every Division during the passage of the legislation.
It is disturbing to hear what the hon. Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) has said about the veto and the change to a majority decision. I could develop that theme, but I do not want to delay the House unduly.
I ask the Government to consider seriously what I have said about the bottling of wine. In a national context the number of jobs may be small, but they are important to the communities involved. I hope that in his reply, whether it is before 7 o'clock or after 10 o'clock, the Minister will be able to give an assurance that the Government will be robust in opposing any suggestion that wine should be bottled only in the country of origin.

Mr. Andrew MacKay: I hope that the right hon. Member for Bristol, South (Mr. Cocks) will not mind if I do not pursue his ideas down the river of port and sherry that is vital to his constituency.
The hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) came to an amazing conclusion in his speech. I was surprised to hear him say that he wished Spain and Portugal well in entering the EEC. Heaven help anybody who is wished ill by the hon. Gentleman if his speech was meant to wish those countries well. His was a strange and all-too-typical speech from the Opposition Front Bench.
Ten years ago, Spain and Portugal were just leaving a black era of tyranny under a one-party state. At that time, all the fashionable pundits in the House and elsewhere told us that the chance of democracy surviving in those countries was slim. The pundits said that there was a threat of Communists taking over and of the military reasserting


its power. The Spanish and Portuguese people deserve great credit for consistently voting in elections —and, I think our Portuguese friends would agree, in too many elections in their case —for democratic, moderate, centralist politicians and Government.
The West has an obligation to ensure that still-fragile democracies continue to flourish. There is no better way to assist them than to ensure that they are part of the European Economic Community.
I voted in favour of continued membership of the Community in the 1975 referendum, principally because I believe in the strength of a politically united western Europe. The addition of Spain and Portugal to the EEC will considerably strengthen that position. I hope that our friends in Spain will remain members of NATO when they hold their referendum next spring. I believe that Spain's membership of the European Community can only strengthen the Western Alliance and lead to peaceful co-existence in Europe.
Spain and Portugal have much to offer the Community. I do not believe that it would have been so easy for the Foreign Secretary to reach such a happy accord with the Spanish on the future of Gibraltar if Spain had not been joining the Community. I believe that Spain's accession will lead to economic regeneration both on the Rock and in the sad town of La Linea.
Europe's important trading links with South America will be improved by the addition of Spain and Portugal and their special relationship with that continent. It saddens me that in a Second Reading debate, which I believe is a historic occasion, some of my hon. Friends and certain Opposition Members are looking too closely at the balance sheet and are not taking a wider historical perspective. It is vital that the Bill be given a Second Reading by an overwhelming majority, so that our friends in Spain and Portugal can see that we truly welcome them into the democratic club. Spain and Portugal will play a vital part in Western defence and a politically united Europe.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell: The brief speech of the hon. Member for Berkshire, East (Mr. MacKay) has brought the debate back to the major realities of the Bill and the political act enshrined in it.
At the beginning of the last decade, when membership of the European Economic Community was commended to Parliament and to the people of this country, it was the economic aspect that was almost exclusively stressed. It was conceded that to acquire a large free market combining the United Kingdom with the Community, there would necessarily have to be a compulsory, common framework of law. The fact that a comprehensive renunciation of the legislative and legal powers of the United Kingdom was effected passed without immediate criticism.
It soon appeared, however, that the internal market we had entered, the market in which we were to prosper, which would bring regeneration to the British economy, the inward-looking market, was related to an economic structure of the other member states, particularly in respect of agriculture, which was very difficult to reconcile with the economic structure of the United Kingdom.
That difference of structure has caused the perpetual difficulties which have dogged the questions of the European budget and the common agricultural policy —difficulties, which, within the existing framework of 10

member states, if they have not been papered over, are at any rate considered by some people to have been rendered tolerable and acceptable.
Now, in 1985, comes the paradoxical proposition that we should add to the Community of Ten two new member states whose economic and agricultural characteristics will cause even more difficulties to combine with our own and those of the rest of the Community than anything faced in the past.
Why should the Government take a step that is bound to exacerbate the difficulties which we already suffer in the Community? The hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) announced at the beginning and again at the end of his speech that the Opposition would support the Bill. It would have been impossible to guess that from the content of his speech, which mostly consisted of a scathing denunciation, a veritable Philippic against the additional difficulties that would be encountered by a Community which included Spain and Portugal.

Mr. George Robertson: rose—

Mr. Powell: I see that the hon. Member for Hamilton would like to intervene. Perhaps he intends to explain why, after their electoral defeat in 1983, the Labour party has consistently been running away from its position on the EEC?

Mr. Robertson: The right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) is wrong again. The Labour party is not running away from the issues; it is the world that is changing. Unfortunately, for some hon. Members and some parties, the world never seems to change. The Labour party welcomes the accession of Spain and Portugal to the EEC. In my speech I reminded the House and the Government of the need for political courage in dealing with the economic and agricultural problems associated with accession. There is no inconsistency in that.

Mr. Powell: I should like to remind the House of some of the difficulties to which the hon. Gentleman drew attention. He said that the accession would "affect this country for the worse". I am interested in the reasons why we should gaily take a step which in his view will "affect this country for the worse". The accession, he said, will cause the "already chronic problems of surplus to be accentuated". At one point in the hon. Gentleman's speech he even said that the problems would become "insoluble".
Why, if all the difficulties are to be made more severe, and if one section after another of the United Kingdom is to suffer disadvantages from the accession, are we nevertheless accepting this action? Why are both Front Benches commending the action to the House?
They gave the reason, although it was not in the forefront of their arguments. The reason is political, not economic. They say that in recent years those two countries have had the good fortune to have a change in their constitution. To use an American expression, they have become "democratic." It is argued that the way to safeguard their democracy is for them to become members of the European Economic Community. In that context, I hope that no Spaniards or Portuguese were listening when the hon. Member for Hamilton referred to their "political immaturity", which he felt would be much assisted by association with politically mature countries such as West Germany and other member states of the existing Community.
The proposition is, therefore, that the European Economic Community is an organisation for the protection of democracy. I resent the suggestion that it is any business of ours how the Spaniards or Portuguese decide to run their affairs. I resent the modern habit of criticising from a self-righteous pedestal the manner in which the affairs of other countries are regulated.

Mr. George Foulkes: The right hon. Gentleman does it all the time.

Mr. Powell: I assure the hon. Gentleman that I do not, but we have got into a bad habit in that respect, and we shall suffer retribution when the same medicine is ladled out to us. I state my objection to the very concept of entering into a community with Spain and Portugal with a view to securing or preventing certain developments in their internal forms of government. That is as much their business as our internal form of government is ours.

Mr. Forth: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the preamble to the Treaty of Rome makes no reference to the word or the concept of democracy, and that there is no mechanism within the institutional arrangements of the EEC to expel any member state if its political institutions change during the period of membership?

Mr. Powell: All those things would surely be implicit if it were indeed an organisation for the preservation of democracy and for the enforcement of certain supposedly democratic forms of behaviour on its members.
The real intention is not quite so crude. In this context, "democracy" is used as a term of art to mean adherence to the Western Alliance. The whole business is about Spain's membership of NATO. Distinct advantages which lie within the gift of the European Community and which, as has been admitted in the debate, will have to be paid for in part by this country and the people of this country are being offered as a bribe to Spain to remain what is called "democratic", but really means being a member of NATO. It is all about the integrity, as the United States sees it, of the United States Alliance.
At a critical stage of negotiations between Spain and the EC, the then Spanish Premier deployed in his campaign for membership of the EC the slogan, "No membership of the EC —no membership of NATO." The admission of Spain and Portugal to the EC, with all the economic advantages that they anticipate from it, is the quid pro quo for remaining in NATO, a question which remains open and on which a referendum is to be held in Spain in the near future. Like certain British politicians whom we remember, the present Spanish Prime Minister, in preparing for that referendum campaign, will be on the opposite side from that on which he sought office.
An article in The Times of 3 October states that during the Spanish Minister's tour of Europe:
In Bonn Senor Gonzalez had to listen to Chancellor Kohl emphasising the link between EEC membership and Nato.
This is a quid pro quo —a deal set up in economic terms between membership of the EC and a yes vote in the Spanish referendum on membership of the NATO Alliance. As they approach the referendum, the people of Spain will be told, "Don't you dare vote yourselves out of NATO. Think of all the economic disadvantages that you will incur if membership of the European Economic

Community, which is linked with this, is withdrawn." That is what this is all about. It is a politicisation at the highest level of the European Economic Community.
When we receive the hastily and ill produced document to which reference has already been made, it may turn out to contain something foreshadowed earlier this week. I refer to
the proposed treaty on a common European foreign policy
which, according to The Times correspondent in Luxembourg,
should receive a smooth passage.
The economic aspects of the EC have already demanded and obtained from this country a far-reaching renunciation of the powers of self-government and decision centred in the House of Commons, and thus in the electorate of this country; but the political dimension represents a much larger and more subtle withdrawal of power both from Parliament and from the electorate. The very fact that it will be embodied in understandings which lie outside the legal framework of the EC makes it very much more difficult for the people of this country to understand what it is of which they are being deprived.

Mr. Marlow: rose—

Mr. Powell: I am about to conclude. The hon. Gentleman may be able to entertain the House with a speech of his own.
We are reminded of those facts by the very nature of this accession which the Bill makes possible —a deal between members of the EEC on political grounds and a nation reluctant to belong to NATO but trembling on the verge of taking a decision about it. The Economic Community was in itself incompatible with the parliamentary self-government of the United Kingdom through this House of Commons. A political community, which is the direction in which we are now being steered by the same influences, is a far greater withdrawal of power and responsibility from the place where the electorate of this country have always reposed them —that is, in Parliament and in the House of Commons.
I hope that there will be those who will oppose the Second Reading of the Bill. If so, I shall be happy, with my friends, to join them in the Lobby.

Mr. Matthew Parris: The right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell), unlike many previous speakers, rose to the terms of the debate, although he reached a different conclusion from mine.
I disagree with the right hon. Gentleman on two points. He reminded the House, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Forth), that there are no mechanisms in the EC for the enforcement of democracy or its continuation on member states, but those are not the terms in which the value to Spanish democracy of joining the EEC have been advanced. Democracy is relatively new in Spain and Portugal. I believe that one of the motives for their desire to become democratic countries is their great respect for older democratic institutions such as those in this country and elsewhere in Europe.
I hope that it is not patronising to say that there is a good deal of respect and admiration in the Iberian peninsula for the democratic traditions in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. To exclude Spain and Portugal from an alliance and a community of which we are part would seem to be


a rebuff to the development of democratic institutions in their countries. To include them, and give them a warm and friendly welcome, is to encourage those democratic instincts. In that way we can encourage democracy in Spain and Portugal.
The right hon. Member for South Down said that membership of the EC would be advanced in Spain as a quid pro quo for staying in NATO, and that Spaniards would be told that if they were to leave the Community they would forgo the benefits of EC membership. He is wrong. I do not believe that Spaniards will be told that. Indeed, there would be no point in telling them that because it would not be true. A country does not have to belong to NATO to join the EC. Spaniards know that well, and it will be made clear in the referendum campaign.

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Malcolm Rifkind): There is an additional consideration. By the time the referendum takes place, the act of accession is likely to have come into effect, and Spain will be a member of the Community and cannot be required to leave it, irrespective of the outcome of the referendum.

Mr. Parris: I agree with my hon. and learned Friend.
I listened to the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) and to the right hon. Member for Bristol, South (Mr. Cocks), who until recently was the Labour Chief Whip. Both belong to a great Socialist party. Spain is being led into the EC by Senor Gonzales, one of the greatest Socialist leaders of his time, with great courage because his party was originally opposed to membership of the EC. The debate is an opportunity for the Opposition to encourage Senor Gonzales and Socialists in Spain. [HON. MEMBERS: "We did."] If that was encouragement, they should provide discouragement. Senor Gonzales has also been brave in changing his mind about membership of NATO. He will advise Spaniards to vote for membership of NATO. As I understand it, the Labour party is in favour of membership of NATO and believes that the organisation has a useful and important role to play. The debate provides a useful opportunity for Labour party spokesmen to encourage the Spanish Socialist party in its new-found desire to join NATO.

Mr. Budgen: My hon. Friend is usually sceptical about interference in the affairs of another nation state. What on earth has it to do with the British Labour party to offer its advice to Spaniards about the political view that they should hold on one issue or another?

Mr. Parris: I make a distinction between offering advice and interfering, and I see no reason why one may not offer advice. If the purpose of belonging to NATO is to safeguard Western democracy and to buttress ourselves against the threat from the Soviet Union, and if it would help those purposes for Spain to join NATO, it would be right to advise Spaniards that the right decision is to join that organisation. The decision is for Spaniards, but my advice is clear, and I feel no hesitation in giving it.
As many hon. Members wish to speak, I shall conclude my remarks. One of the sad inevitabilities of speaking in the House is that one gives a broad and, often, feeble welcome in general terms to a proposal, and then feels it necessary to complain at length about the details and to foresee appalling problems. I hoped that in a debate such as this we could simply say, "Welcome" to Spain and Portugal. On that note, I end my speech.

Mr. Robert Maclennan: I agree with the hon. Member for Derbyshire, West (Mr. Parris) that this is an important occasion, which merits being so treated. The welcome that I give on behalf of Social Democratic and Liberal Members to the accession of Spain and Portugal to the European Community is unqualified and unreserved.
The Foreign Secretary did not impart a sense of elan or great enthusiasm, but that may be more because of his style than his conviction. He is undoubtedly right to emphasise the importance to the United Kingdom, and the whole of Europe, of the Community's enlargement to 320 million people seeking through ever closer contacts to exercise a greater influence on the affairs of the world.
The political importance to Europe of the two great continental countries of the Iberian peninsula joining the Community is immense. Their strategic importance to our fortunes this century is surely not beyond the recall of the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell), who seemed to think that the nature of the Governments in Spain and Portugal was a matter of indifference. The neutrality and covert hostility of Spain during the second world war was of great importance to many of our citizens. The right hon. Gentleman's memory is surprisingly short for a historian. His fairy tales about the motivation of Spanish politicians in bringing Spain to the unification of its political objectives with other European countries are matched only by the fantasising, to which we were subjected, about the Prime Minister's motivation in reaching an agreement with the Taoiseach. It is all part of the right hon. Gentleman's convoluted, twisted and self-deceiving imagination.
It is a matter of huge satisfaction that Spain and Portugal, which have played such a notable part in the development of our European culture and history, and whose fortunes have been entwined with ours, sometimes for good and sometimes for ill, should now move in parallel with us. For many centuries the history of our literature, music and religion has been greatly influenced by them. It is a matter of pride that we can now share in a common destiny through common participation in common decision-making. The United Kingdom has sought that adhesion for a long time. It was the policy of the Labour party when it was in government, and it has taken seven long years of negotiation to bring about its consummation.
It is of great importance to our future, as it is to the Iberian countries, that their democracies, now freely chosen and sustained by general elections, should be underpinned by belonging to a free association of democratic states. For their most important sectors of economy —agriculture and fishing —which have caused the greatest difficulty in negotiations, the negotiations mark a significant and important achievement.
Although there will undoubtedly be difficulties for our own horticulture, in particular, in adapting, in the 10 years available to the industry, to the new competition from the fruit growing countries of the Mediterranean, 10 years is not an impossible time in which to achieve the necessary adaptations. I was disappointed that the Foreign Secretary did not respond more positively to the intervention from the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr. Nelson), who asked if the Government would be willing to give assistance to our domestic industry to make the necessary adaptations.


I add my voice to that of the hon. Member in asking the Minister of State, who is to reply to the debate, to pay specific attention to that point.

Dr. Norman A. Godman: Is the hon. Gentleman's party satisfied with the fisheries agreement negotiated between Spain and the European Community?

Mr. Maclennan: I shall be dealing with fisheries when I have finished what I have to say on agriculture and horticulture.
The major problems that will remain for the Community as a whole relate to wine and oil, and it will be necessary to seek to exert quantitative restrictions on the price support that is available for those two commodities. There has been an important achievement on fisheries. The transitional phase that has been offered is important, but more important is the strict control of fishing, which is a part of the agreement leading to the accession of the two countries.
Spain has the largest fishing fleet in Europe and constitutes perhaps a third of the total fleet of the whole of the European Community. As such, whether within or without the Community, it would constitute a major threat to fishing stocks if it were not subjected to a fishing regime which sought to prevent the depredation of the stocks. By bringing Spain into the fisheries regime, and now applying to Spain the regulations on, for example, mesh sizes, we are exerting a control which would not have been possible if Spain had remained outside the Community.
It is also right that there should be a limitation on the number of vessels allowed to fish at any time in the specified areas which have been agreed. It was a major negotiating achievement. It was very difficult to get, and I congratulate the Government on it.
The geopolitical arguments are the most important reasons for welcoming Spain and Portugal into this family of nations. The decision has had a direct impact on the European Community and has undoubtedly played a part in concentrating the minds of the Heads of Government, who have just completed their summit discussions on the mechanisms for reaching decisions within the Community. In that sense, it is unfortunate that the Government timed the debate to take place before the outcome of the discussions could be made available to us and included in the wider debate.
It is extremely difficult to reach a sensible decision in the interests of the 12 member countries of the Community without the modifications of the Community's decision-making machinery which have been under discussion, and which we shall certainly wish to consider on another occasion. Majority voting and a strengthening of the powers of the European Parliament are essential if the Community is to move forward, particularly in the light of the enlargement of its membership. To that extent, as that development was in any event necessary, I welcome the accession of the two countries.

Mr. Marlow: With regard to majority voting, if circumstances should arise in which the Community, through majority voting, were to agree on a directive with which the hon. Gentleman and his party disagreed, would he be happy that this House would be forced to enact that legislation against his will and against the will of the House?

Mr. Maclennan: The hon. Gentleman has been in the House long enough, and has heard me speak on this subject sufficiently frequently, not to be surprised when I remind him that my party and the Liberal party are firmly of the view that it will be necessary to retain in some form —although in more closely defined circumstances than hitherto —the use of the Luxembourg compromise to protect the vital national interests of this country. That has been repeated by me and by Members of both alliance parties on many occasions.
I recognise that if we are to make progress towards a free market internally, and towards the development of the social and regional policies of the Community for the benefit of our unemployed and suffering citizenry, it will be necessary to make compromises on occasions, and some of them will clearly be less than desirable, but I believe that they will be more palatable than many of the measures which have been forced on this suffering country by Her Majesty's Government in the past six years.
In the debate in earlier days about the enlargement of the Community, the fear of some hon. Members was that the adhesion of these two countries would in some way dilute the European Community and deprive it of the sort of impetus that would be necessary if it was to be an effective force in the world. I doubt whether that was a justified fear, for the Spanish and Portuguese have shown, in the past few years, a dynamism and capacity for self-renewal which are a model to many of the other nations which are rather smugly congratulating themselves on their advanced state of democracy.
Spain and Portugal both have links with one of the parts of the world with which the rest of the European Community is sadly lacking contact —Latin America, one of the most unstable and threatened parts of the world. I hope that the enlargement of the Community by the adherence of Spain and Portugal will not only open up new trading contacts with the countries of Latin America and spread the influence of European thinking in that continent, but will enhance the political influence that we may have there.
I do not shrink, as apparently the right hon. Member for South Down does, from overtly expressing where I believe the interests of Britain lie in relation to other countries' internal affairs. It is perfectly legitimate for us to recognise that in Latin America the prevalence of anti-democratic Governments is positively hostile to Britain's interests, and thoroughly destabilising. The adherence of the two Iberian countries, which have such strong links with Latin America historically, could be a force for stability and for the sort of change towards democracy that we would greatly welcome.

Mr. Eric Forth: A debate should comprise two sides of the argument. Until now I have heard only one side. With the honourable exception of the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell), a variety of hon. Members have said in a variety of ways how much they welcome the Bill.
It is clear as we debate this issue that this House has a complete lack of effective power or involvement in its determination. I say that because this matter, which is generally agreed to be vital to the EEC, has not been debated by the House since 1978, with the exception of an Adjournment debate that I initiated on 4 April of this year, when the Minister of State and I went round the course


together and rehearsed our speeches for today. At least, I rehearsed mine, although I am sure that his will contain much new material.
How can the Government know the views of hon. Members if we have not been able to express them since 1978? I ask that question because the Foreign Secretary referred with some fondness to the signing ceremony in May 1985 when Foreign Ministers gathered to sign a number of treaties which put the stamp of approval on the entry of Spain and Portugal to the EEC. He said that those countries would become members in 1986.
None of that apparently allows of any involvement or participation by this House in the process. What he said, what has gone before and what has led up to this debate has all been based on the assumption that we would give rubber-stamp approval not just to the principle of the entry of Spain and Portugal to the EEC but to all the details contained in the variety of agreements that underpin their accession. In other words, we can do nothing but give our general approval to what is proposed —or, as in my case, my disapproval or lack of support. That illustrates the way in which the House has no real involvement in the process other than giving its automatic approval.
Another indication of the lack of gravity with which the British Houses of Parliament are dealing with the matter is that, when the Bill was in another place, only one hour and 16 minutes of their Lordships' time was devoted to considering the subject before the measure received its Second Reading and was passed to us. It cannot be claimed that the important principles involved in this grave matter have received detailed examination.
We have a precedent to consider, and that is the entry of Greece to the EEC in 1981. That provides a model from which to judge the effect of a new country joining the Community, and Greece is in many ways similar, geographically and in other respects, to Spain and Portugal.
The history of Greek entry to the Community cannot give us much encouragement because not only have the Greeks suffered severely in their economy since they entered the EEC, but they have held the Community to ransom in foreign policy. We recall their eccentric line on the shooting down of the Korean air liner. They have also blackmailed the EEC into giving them ever more money so that they may at least go through the semblance of behaving themselves.
The latest news from Greece in this respect appeared in Hansard as recently as this week when, in answer to a written question, it was stated that the Greeks had had to take certain economic measures
to deal with balance of payments and other problems. The package contained a number of protective measures, including the introduction of an import deposit scheme, which required derogations from Greece's obligations under the EC treaty."—[Official Report, 2 December 1985; Vol. 88, c. 101.]
That country came into the EEC on the basis of the promises and rhetoric that we have heard today, yet only four years later it finds itself forced into taking special measures which run contrary to all the principles which are offered to us in defence of the EEC, such as free trade.
Greece has returned to the Community to say, "We require more money from you. By the way, we shall not be able to adhere to the rules of the Community that you said, when we came in, we should have to obey." I am beginning to suspect that the precedent of Greece, which has not been mentioned today, gives us cause for thought.

Mr. Robert Jackson: Does my hon. Friend accept that the real parallel in the case he is describing is between Greece and the United Kingdom rather than between Greece and Spain and Portugal? The essential difference is that the negotiations for Greek entry took place under a Conservative Government, followed by the election of a Socialist Government opposed to Greek membership; and the same happened in this country, which is why Britain and Greece have had political difficulties in accommodating to Europe. The Iberian negotiations were conducted by Socialist Governments, which leads one to suppose that this may be a happier story.

Mr. Forth: The irony of that agreement is that, while we continually refer to the glories of democracy in Spain and Portugal, presumably that democracy could lead to a change of Government in those countries, which could lead to precisely the effect that my hon. Friend denies could take place, so I am not utterly convinced by the logic of his argument.
Let us set aside the Greek precedent —because it appears that the British Government have not given it much thought or are not convinced by it —and consider what we have been offered many times. We were offered it in a graphic sense by the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) and by my hon. Friends the Members for Berkshire, East (Mr. MacKay) and for Derbyshire, West (Mr. Parris). I refer to what go under the generic heading of the geo-political arguments. They take many forms, and they are the only real arguments that we have been offered as benefits resulting from the Bill.
The first is the NATO argument. I accept what the right hon. Member for South Down said about the bribe to Spain to join NATO. I have always believed that we have all along been saying to the Spaniards that membership of the EEC was a reward for them entering NATO It is a straightforward and basic argument, though it ignores the fact that Ireland is in the EEC and is neutral and riot in NATO, while France is in the EEC and has always had a dubious and individual relationship with NATO.
Meanwhile, the country which is arguably the more important member of NATO, Turkey, is not in the EEC and never will be so long as the Greeks are members. That returns us to the Greek dimension. Thus, I have never been convinced that the connection which is often made in the geo-political context between membership of NATO and the EEC has any validity, and I hope that the House will set it aside in considering the Bill.
The second argument is that of democracy, as the right hon. Member for South Down pointed out. The preamble to the treaty of Rome, the basis of the EEC, makes no reference to democracy; there is no necessary connection between a so-called democratic form of government and membership of the Community. Nor is there any mechanism by which EEC members can judge whether one or other is democratic or, if they deem them not to be democratic, eject them from membership of the Community.
With that in mind, I am at a loss to understand why we are being offered this rather magical but as yet undefined connection between the survival of democracy in Spain and Portugal and their membership of the EEC, apart from the fact that it is a patronising sort of argument to adduce.
I had the honour when I was in the European Parliament of being a member of that Parliament's delegation to


Portugal. When I visited that great country, with which we have historic connections, I was impressed with the extent to which the Portuguese have a political tradition every bit as long as ours, and in many ways longer, and it ill behoves us to lecture the Portuguese on principles of politics or about the way in which they will benefit in some ill-defined way from joining the EEC, which is hardly a model of democracy or anything else. That is why I say that the value of the benefits is at the least of considerable doubt.
The serious problem with what we are being asked to accept today is that, however doubtful the benefits, we have heard nothing about the costs. There may be arguments of a geo-political nature, our constituents may wish to support democracy in Spain and Portugal and they may wish to support the concept of the Western Alliance or even NATO. But we are being irresponsible and unfair if we expect our constituents to pick up a tab which is uncosted and unquantified in terms of jobs and many other respects.

Mr. Edward Leigh: My hon. Friend is a former member of the European Assembly and he is an expert on matters relating to the treaty of Rome. Will he therefore enlighten the House about the Council of Europe communiquù that has just been deposited in the Library? It says:
The Community shall adopt measures intended progressively to establish the internal market.
In particular, it says:
In article 28 the terms 'unanimously' or 'unanimity' shall be replaced by a qualified majority.
Can my right hon. Friend enlighten the House about the ability of this country to stand up for its own interests?

Mr. Forth: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point. It leads me to my next point about the institutions of the Community. We were told during the early stages of the argument that enlargement would speed up the reform of the European Community's institutions —a much needed and much overdue process. If Spain and Portugal enter the European Community, the Commission will be enlarged and will contain 17 commissioners instead of the existing 14. Those right hon. and hon. Members who have a passing knowledge of European Community affairs know that it has struggled for a long time to devise meaningful portfolios for 14 commissioners. What it will be able to devise for 17 commissioners is beyond my comprehension.
When my hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office replies to the debate, I hope that he will refer to what the additional commissioners will do. I can anticipate what he will say. He will tell the House that Her Majesty's Government have argued for a long time that there should be one commissioner for each member state and that he is prepared to recommend that Spain and Portugal should enter the European Community on the existing institutional basis. There will therefore be 17 commissioners. When there are 17 commissioners, it will be difficult to obtain agreement, particularly the agreement of Spain and Portugal, to a reduction in the number of commissioners.
It will also mean an enlargement of the membership of the European Parliament, over which we should perhaps

draw a discreet veil. Two additional languages will also have to be dealt with by the interpretation and translation facilities of the European Community, which will result in an exponential increase of the kind that always takes place in the cost of translation and interpretation.
I referred earlier to cost. I shall refer to it under two headings: the cost to the European Community, and the cost to the United Kingdom. The main burden of the cost will come under the heading of "agriculture". Agriculture already accounts for three quarters of the European Community's budget. Spain is the most important, in terms of agriculture, of the two new member states. The accession of Spain will result in an increase of 30 per cent. in the Community's agricultural area, of 25 per cent. in the agricultural labour force, of 32 per cent. in the number of agricultural holdings, of 25 per cent. in the output of vegetables, of 48 per cent. in the output of fresh fruit, and of 59 per cent. in the output of olive oil. However, the number of consumers in the European Community will increase by only 14 per cent.
These figures demonstrate graphically the potential for the exaggeration and exacerbation of the agricultural problem that already confronts the European Community. It is a measure of the extent to which the accession of Spain will add to the problems of agricultural production and cost. I leave out of account Spain's potential as soon as it has irrigation. Her productivity will be increased. With our help, advice and money the production of a wide range of agricultural products will be increased. We shall also have to grapple with two new products —olive oil and tomatoes —which will have a serious effect upon the Community's agricultural policy.
That will be bad enough, but even worse —this is perhaps the most profound problem that will face the Community if it is enlarged to include Spain and Portugal —will be the shift in the political balance from north to south. That will be a permanent phenomenon. There will also be a shift in the political balance from right to left. I hope that that will be a temporary phenomenon. There will be a further shift in the political balance from the rich to the poor countries, a phenomenon that will last for as long as we can resist the redistribution of our national resources to the new southern member states of the Community.

Mr. Maclennan: Has the hon. Gentleman noticed that this year Italy's gross domestic product has outstripped the gross domestic product of this country?

Mr. Forth: That is an interesting thought, if it is true. I accept what the hon. Gentleman says.
I ask both myself and the hon. Gentleman to consider what the effect will be upon our economy, our constituents and our electorate of the accession of Spain and Portugal. If Italy has advanced so much, I suspect that it has been largely at our expense. One only has to consider the extent to which Italian white goods are imported into this country. Furthermore, when I visit factories in my constituency, over and over again I find that Italian machinery is being used there. A great deal of Italy's prosperity is probably at our expense. If Spanish industries made similar progress, that would almost certainly be at our expense, too.
In the countries of the south, which include Spain and Portugal, between 11 and 30 per cent. of their work force is still involved in agriculture and their per capita income


is between £1,000 and £3,000 per annum. Between 2 per cent. and 7 per cent. of the work force in the northern countries are involved in agriculture. The per capita incomes are between £4,000 and £7,000 per annum. There is a clear divide between the countries of the south and the north in terms of agricultural commitment and income. Most of the southern countries also have Socialist Governments.
For the first time, therefore, there will be a line up in the European Community between Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland —when it suits her for agricultural purposes —and France, when it suits her for agricultural and other purposes. The new European Community will have the political power to draw the resources of the common agricultural policy and of the other policies from the north to the south. This is the kernel of the true redistribution for the first time of political power in the European Community.
My charge against the Government is that we have not been told about the likely effect of enlargement upon our economy and upon our people because of the change in the political balance. Unless we are told what its effect will be, I fail to see how the House can reach a judgment about the effect of enlargement upon the European Community.
As for the effect of enlargement upon the United Kingdom, it has been said over and over again that one of the benefits of membership of the European Community is access to the regional and social funds. This point was referred to by the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson). When two less wealthy countries enter the Community we shall slip further down the league of claimants on the regional and social funds. Enlargement means that we shall lose out in our claim upon Community resources. We shall be faced by increased competition in horticulture from such products as lettuces, cucumbers, strawberries, potatoes, tomatoes, cut flowers and apples. The Government may say that horticulture will be protected for 10 years, but horticulturists will want to know what will happen after that. We cannot reach a decision on such a matter, which is based upon protection for a certain period, without knowing in full what the effect will be after the 10-year period has expired.
Furthermore, Spain's industrial productivity is about 60 per cent. of that of the United Kingdom. When Spanish industries have access to European Community markets, who can say what the effect will be upon industries such as drop forging in the west midlands and automobile manufacture? Why is it assumed that our industrialists will be able to export goods more successfully when they have access to the Spanish market? They will be faced with competition from West Germany, France, Denmark and Italy.

Mr. Parris: I understood that my hon. Friend's complaint, and that of many of his hon. Friends, in the past was that membership of the European Community disbarred us from buying cheap food outside the European Community. My hon. Friend now appears to be complaining that we may be able to buy cheap food within the Community.

Mr. Forth: I am complaining in the sense that I am concentrating upon the effect that enlargement will have upon the growers of food in the United Kingdom.
The effects of EC membership on consumers since we joined have been a matter of some debate. It is not strictly

relevant to the debate today, although I take my hon. Friend's point. However, if we enjoy the benefits of cheap citrus fruits, horticultural products and the like from Spain and Portugal, I leave the effect of that on our indigenous growers of those products to my hon. Friend's imagination. I am worried about that on behalf of my constituency.

Mr. Teddy Taylor: Why is my hon. Friend worried about the horticulturists? Is it not one of the basic rules of the Common Market that all the extra cucumbers, tomatoes, oranges and apples that we have we simply destroy? I thought that we had a policy of spending about £87 million a week on destroying food, so all the extra tomatoes, oranges and cauliflowers will be destroyed at the taxpayers' expense.

Mr. Forth: I regret to say to my hon. Friend that that is almost certainly correct, arid I bow to his knowledge of such matters.

Mr. Hugh Dykes: Why is it that my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor) never worried about £20 billion spent on dole money for the unemployed because we are not reducing the unemployment figures? Is not that far more important than small amounts of money spent on EC countries?

Mr. Forth: I shall resist the temptation to discuss unemployment at greater length. One of our other concerns must be the effect on Britain's unemployment of Spain and Portugal coming into the EEC. I regret that my pessimistic view is that unemployment in Britain will increase as a result of the entry of Spain and Portugal into the Community.
The case for the accession of Spain and Portugal to the Community has not been made in a convincing manner. Several arguments have been repeated with little substantiation and support. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will offer us more when he replies to the debate. However, much more worrying than that is the complete lack of any effort by the Government to tell us in detail and over a wide range what the costs will be for agriculture, horticulture and industry, and the Government's view of the effect of the shift of political balance in the Community from north to south and its effect on the institutions and policies of the Community. Until we are given that information in more detail, I am unable to support the measure.

Mr. David Young: I should not be intervening in the debate if the Secretary of State had not seemed to dodge with some agility the effect on the people of Gibraltar of the accession of Spain and Portugal to the Community. Gibraltar is a small community, they are still British citizens, and their main work force is organised by a British trade union. Indeed, they gave Britain tremendous support over many years and more recently during the Falklands conflict. It will be recalled that the Falkland islanders got their British citizenship due to an Argentine invasion.
Let me outline the problems about which Gibraltarians are worried. I am assured that from 1 January, with the Spanish accession, the problem of pensions will come to a head. We are assured that in the current negotiations Her Majesty's Government have allowed a position to arise where 12 per cent. of Gibraltar's GNP will now be given


over to the repayment of the pensions of former Spanish employees of the dockyard who were excluded from their occupations by the decision of Franco to close the gates. That amounts to £7 million a year.

Mr. McQuarrie: I must make it clear to the hon. Gentleman that it is not only the dockyard which is affected. More than four thousand other workers went across the border in July 1969 and did not return because Franco closed the gates.

Mr. Young: I accept that. I am saying that, in consultation with the Gibraltar Government, we are told that unless there is some urgent decision on the issue, Gibraltar's economy will be destroyed. That is the kernel of the problem.
We should be aware that we cannot wait for negotiations until 1 January 1986. I am informed that Her Majesty's Government put responsibility for the payment of those pensions on to the Gibraltar Government. But the Gibraltar Government are not in a position to pay. As was said earlier, if the matter were taken to the European Court of Justice, Her Majesty's Government would be in the dock, as they were about birching in the Isle of Man. I hope that the Minister of State will deal with that essential point so that we know precisely the Government's point of view.
Her Majesty's Government closed the dockyard, privatised it and made it commercial. We are now informed that the dockyard cannot obtain skilled labour from within Gibraltar. Therefore, British taxpayers will now be subsidising labour from Portugal to carry out the skilled work in Gibraltar. Will the Minister ask for a clear indication of how that will place us, knowing the strains on our dockyards in Britain and Gibraltar?
In agreeing to the accession of Spain and Portugal, it is the duty of the House not to neglect the rights of 30,000 British citizens in Gibraltar who look to us as their one safeguard. I ask hon. Members to remember that it is Her Majesty's Government who have negotiated the accession treaty, not the Gibraltar Government. I hope that the Minister of State will not dodge those essential issues, as his right hon. and learned Friend did earlier.

Mr. Michael Knowles: I have supported the Community over the years from a political standpoint. I have never really believed the economic arguments. In the long term, they could turn out either way. But I believe that the way forward for western Europe is through political unification. That intention is clear in the Treaty of Rome. The phrase used there is
to seek an ever closer union among their peoples.
We put our signature to that treaty, and much of the pressure that Britain has been under over the past few years arose simply because we wanted to treat the Community as some form of free trade area while other members wanted to carry out the original intention and go forward.
I favour the entry of Spain and Portugal. It will be a good thing in the long run, although the long run could be a lot longer than 10 or 15 years. For both countries on the Iberian peninsula, this marks the end of a long dark night, not only in the sense of coming out of the corporate state regime of the past few years but for the past century.
There will be economic difficulties, let no one mistake that. We are bringing into the Community economies which are fundamentally different from our own. The only comparison is with Greece. In my opinion, that is secondary because my support for the Community is from a political standpoint in the first place. It is not just a matter of balancing the books and asking about the price of half a pound of butter or whether we shall be better or worse off. That is the small change of the movement towards European unification. I hope that we shall see the day when the nations of eastern Europe come out of their long dark night able to join the European Community when they, too, are free.
We are trying to create much more than just a "get rich quick" club. There will be problems, and one can see that the cost of accession has now been put back into the budget. When we last debated European affairs, I was critical of the European Council, because it had ignored the costs of the accession of Spain and Portugal and had taken out of the budget the cost of the burden of the past. At least it has now restored the cost of accession. One hopes that it will go further. If the burden of the past is not built back into the budget, hon. Members who said that we were likely to lose out on the distribution of funds in the next year are correct.
Some hon. Members will cynically vote for the Bill in the hope that, with the addition of two more countries, the Community's structure will crack up. I do not believe that that will happen. We still do not have the details. Various hon. Members have been rushing in and out of the Library trying to discover exactly what was agreed at Luxembourg yesterday. No doubt that will become clearer. However, it is obvious that a start is being made to sort out the decision-making process in the Community, and it is about time. But I can be sure, even before I read the agreement, that it will not go far enough. We should have been a long way down the path to majority decision-making and enhancing the powers of the European Parliament. I think that the agreement will be the first hesitant step.

Mr. Deakins: Federalism.

Mr. Knowles: The hon. Gentleman is yelling "Federalism" as if it were a wild accusation. He will be speaking in a moment in favour of a federalist Government, the United States, and presenting their case, as he often does in the argument.

Mr. William Cash: My hon. Friend and I disagree on this point, and he knows that perfectly well. I should like to refer him to the provisional text of the conclusions of the European Council that has just been placed in the Vote Office.

Mr. Knowles: I have not had a chance to look at the agreement. Waving the agreement at me from 3 ft away will not help me at all. I am willing to admit that my view will probably be that it does not go far enough.
My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Forth) said that one of the problems was that the House did not get an early look at European legislation. A Bill has been presented by the Government today and we have had no information. Somehow, the blame for that is put on the Community. It is not the fault of the Community; it is the fault of the House for letting the Government get away with it. There is a Select Committee on European Legislation, with restrictive powers, by the decision of the House.

Mr. Forth: The problem that I was highlighting is that the Foreign Secretary said that he had signed the agreement in May and that we were being presented with a fait accompli, not from the Community but from our own Government. The process that we are going through today gives the House no opportunity to express its view about what is going on.

Mr. Knowles: On that matter, there is no difference between us. The fault lies with the House for letting the Government get away with what it does not like.
Western Europe is now too small for old-fashioned Napoleonic imperialism. We shall have to draw closer together. The choice for us is not between an independent Britain and a Britain taken over by foreigners. If Europe tries to remain a medley of small and middle-rank countries, its future lies in being a series of small-time American and Japanese colonies. Britain's only choice lies in integration.

Mr. Eric Deakins: I realise that this is an open-ended debate, but there is some desire to finish it early. However, I think that it is an important debate. I disagree with virtually everything that was said by the hon. Member for Nottingham, East (Mr. Knowles), except his conclusion.
I welcome the accession of Spain and Portugal to the European Community, not because I think it will strengthen it, but because it will weaken it. I say that as an inveterate opponent over 25 years not only of British membership, but of the Common Market itself. On the federalist lines developed by the hon. Member for Nottingham, East, I think that the Common Market will develop into a superpower and will be a real threat to the peace of the world. It is already a threat to relations between north and south because of its economic imperialism, its network of client states and its trade policies, which discriminate against goods from the poorer countries.
There are two reasons why I think that the accession of Spain and Portugal will weaken the Economic Community —first, cost, and, second, agriculture. Both those subjects have been alluded to by hon. Members in the debate.
On the subject of cost, I draw the attention of the House to the fact that we passed a Bill at the end of the previous Session raising the VAT limits to 1·4 per cent. and 1·6 per cent. respectively over the next few years. A major justification for VAT increases in the EEC was the cost of the accession of Spain and Portugal. However, the explanatory memorandum to the Bill states:
Spain's contribution to, and receipts from the Communities' Budget should roughly balance".
It also states:
Portugal should be a modest net beneficiary, After the end of the transitional arangements, Spain and Portugal may be expected to be net recipients from that Budget.
If that is the case, what is the justification for the VAT increase to 1·4 per cent. with a further increase to 1·6 per cent.?
The Foreign Secretary said in his opening remarks that the Commission had estimated that, in the seven years that it would take to complete the accession of Spain and Portugal after the transitional arrangements, the total cost would be no more than 0·1 per cent. of VAT. In other words, of the extra 1·4 per cent. that has just been put on

to VAT, only 1·1 per cent. is accounted for by the accession cost. That is not in line with earlier justification of the VAT increases.
How can we believe the Commission's estimate over seven years ahead of what Spain and Portugal are likely to do, which is an unknown quantity? We know from experience that the Commission is incapable of assessing the cost of the common agricultural policy from one year to the next. How, therefore, is it possible for the Commission, with any hope of reasonable accuracy, to assess the cost of enlargement at 0·1 per cent.? That is a sheer guess on the part of the Commission, and it might be miles out, or it might be 2 per cent. or 3 per cent. on the VAT rather than 1·1 per cent.
In his opening speech, the Foreign Secretary gave the impression of being complacent about the additional cost, which he admitted, of the accession of Spain and Portugal to the EEC. He said that it does not really matter because Britain's contribution to that extra cost will be only 7 per cent. Bully for Britain. What about the Community as a whole, when costs go up massively because of the accession of Spain and Portugal? We shall be getting not just the 1·4 per cent. on 1 January but we shall reach the 1·6 per cent. much quicker as a result of increased costs of enlargement. Thereafter, the Government —if they are still in power, and this could happen before a general election in 1987 or 1988—will return to the House with another patched-up agreement with the EEC to raise the 1·6 per cent. limit perhaps to 2 per cent. or even higher. There is no end to the cost implications.
I refer to agriculture. There will be greater pressures for price increases from the producers of Mediterranean crops in Spain and Portugal, adding to the existing pressures from those in Greece, Italy and southern France. There will be greater surpluses of olive oil, horticultural products, citrus fruits and wine. We must not forget that the Community already has a vast wine surplus, and is building up a fairly substantial olive oil surplus, even with existing Mediterranean producers.
Therefore, there will be more disruption of crops, and more wastage of taxpayers' money in storing crops that no one will buy and that will eventually have to be dumped on world markets or destroyed. Will we see the price reductions that the Government hope for? We shall not see them on Mediterranean products. It is doubtful whether we shall see them on the more temperate zone products, such as cereals, which are still in great surplus. When Spain and Portugal enter, they will bring with them a large number of small farmers, small producers, whose average size is probably below the average size in France and Germany. The Community average size is raised because Britain and Denmark have fairly large farms, on average, but when Spain and Portugal enter the average will go down once more and the voting power in Spain and Portugal and therefore indirectly in the Community, through the European Assembly and the Council of Ministers, will be enlarged once more in favour of price increases. I do not forget the cost of the integrated Mediterranean programme, which my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) mentioned in his opening speech, which was very good and clearly outlined the deleterious effect on the Community and on Britain of Spanish and Portuguese entry.
While we are debating the matter, we are awaiting the report from Luxembourg. No doubt there will be a statement by the Prime Minister in the House tomorrow.


In view of the problems of Spanish and Portuguese accession, which I and other hon. Members have outlined —and which both Front Benches agree on —and in view of the existing problems of the Community on surpluses, agricultural policy, regional policy and so on, one would have thought that a meeting of Heads of Government in Luxembourg would address its mind to those problems. Far from it. Hardly a word has been said about those real problems facing the Community and people in western Europe. We now have an agreement on improved decision-making in the EEC. However, it just shows how out of touch with reality all the Heads of Government, including our Prime Minister, are if they think that improved decision-making is the key to putting right what is wrong in the EEC. Even those who agree with the EEC realise that some things are wrong with it.
It is not speed of decision which is important in the Community, which is holding up the progress of the Community, or which is contributing to the vast costs, inefficiency and bureaucracy; it is the content of decisions that matters. It is the content of those decisions that has been so bad in recent years.
The Heads of Government have said nothing about the common agricultural policy in their bulletin, nothing about budgetary costs, nothing about the cost-effectiveness of the CAP, and nothing about value for money in the Community. They have said nothing about any of the controls on public expenditure that we have and sometimes suffer from in this country, which are not applied in the Community, nor could they be unless, as the hon. Member for Nottingham, East wishes, there was a federalist Government in western Europe with a strengthened European Assembly with powers enhanced at the expense of the House of Commons.
I welcome the accession of Spain and Portugal, which will give us a breathing space before other new members come in, when we can resolve, perhaps at the next general election, the contradictions in our attitudes towards the rest of the countries of western Europe. Thereafter there will be increasing progress towards federalism. I cannot believe that a majority of hon. Members would support that solution to the problem.

Mr. Peter Fry: My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Forth) is not the only one in the Conservative party who has grave reservations about the treaty. His speech was the most impressive that we have had during the debate.
I listened to the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) with growing incredulity. He seemed to be welcoming the accession of Spain and Portugal as well as finding every reason that he could for objecting to it. If the Spanish and Portuguese Governments were right of centre, I wonder whether his enthusiasm for the accession of the two countries would be as great. To a certain extent, the Labour party is in a bit of a dilemma on the matter.
The right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) said that, far from the economic Utopia that the EEC was supposed to have become, we have been going through an exceedingly difficult period, when there has been a great crisis of confidence in the future of the Community. As we have failed manifestly to solve the problem of the CAP and all the other problems related to the Community, to take

in Spain and Portugal is rather like saying to a man who is deeply in debt, "Go and borrow a lot more money and that will get you out of your difficulties." From an economic point of view, the entry of Spain and Portugal will add considerably to the Community's difficulties.
I speak as one who, after much heart searching, originally voted against this country's accession to the EEC. Later I was persuaded that we should be better off inside it, but I have now come to the conclusion that first impulses are probably right. I think that my attitude is shared by many millions of people.
I do not wish to talk at length about Gibraltar because it is a highly specialised subject, but if we are talking about a so-called friendly power, I wonder how we define "friendly" when we see the way in which the Spanish Government have treated Gibraltar until comparatively recently. There are still problems with the use of the landing strip at Gibraltar and, hitherto, the Spanish Government have been obdurate in allowing flights into other Spanish cities —hardly the action of a so-called friendly power.
Furthermore, there is fear in Gibraltar that allowing Spain into the EEC is, in some people's minds, a roundabout way of getting rid of the Gibraltar problem and trying to help towards the absorption of the Rock and its people into Spain. I know that that is bitterly resented by the people of Gibraltar, who are very pro-British. I should not like the debate to conclude without putting that on record.
The effect of the accession on British industry worries me very much. If the Spanish Government had shown themselves to be broad-minded and that they had a liberal attitude towards world trade, I would have had greater confidence. I speak as the chairman of the all-party footwear group, and my constituency is probably the centre of men's shoe production. For years I have had complaints about the way in which the Spaniards have protected their industry.
It is interesting that only in March this year the Spanish Government passed an order saying that from 18 October all footwear must carry an incredibly detailed swing tag printed to unbelievably strict specifications, all in Spanish. Yet the Government were negotiating to join the EEC for the liberalisation of trade. Is it any wonder that footwear interests in this country concluded that that move can be interpreted only as a blatant attempt to obstruct the entry of footwear imports to the Community?
Therefore, because I doubt the actions of the Spanish Government in relation to trade, and know that the Spanish will be able to compete behind still substantial barriers for many years to come, I believe that the Governments of the EEC have given away all their powers before seeing the true spirit in which the Spaniards intend to enter the Community. I fear for the jobs of footwear workers in Britain, and I suspect that many other hon. Members will come to fear for the jobs of workers in other industries. It is right that that point of view should be expressed.
When the footwear industry representatives spoke to the British embassy in Madrid, the recommendation was to take the matter to Brussels through the British Footwear Manufacturers Federation. We know how long that path can be, and how empty the solutions when one eventually arrives. We must accept that there is a danger to many jobs in Britain. I am not satisfied that that aspect has been taken into account, so I cannot possibly agree to the treaty.

Mr. George Foulkes: This has been one of the more lively debates on the European Community, even though the Opposition are not opposing the Government on this issue. The last time that I replied to a debate on the European Community, which was on the EC budget, the Minister made a robust speech from which I emerged somewhat scathed and bruised. I caution the Minister of State that that Minister was the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow), and that the following day he returned to the Back Benches. I do not imply that there was a direct connection between the two events —I do not have that influence. However, the Minister should beware of pushing his luck.
At the start of the debate, some of my hon. Friends and some Conservative Members complained about the unavailability of a key document. We now have copies, but it is not easy to read such a large document during a debate. Hon. Members were not joking or raising an unimportant question. An increasing number of hon. Members are worried that Ministers at overseas or Community meetings are more and more acting in our name, and that the House is being contemptuously treated as a rubber stamp. A large majority is no reason for the Government to assume that they can act in that way. It is important that the House is treated properly, and that includes hon. Members being provided with the right documents.
The only useful information that I can obtain from the glossy document is the speed in dismantling tariffs for tomato concentrate and peeled tomatoes, which does not appear to be relevant to the major issues before us. The important question that hon. Members want answered is which issues will be transferred from requiring unanimous decision to decision by a qualified majority. That is important, because we shall be relinquishing our veto on those issues.
We are concerned about the movement towards conformity, led by Lord Cockfield and others. The Government have not fully appreciated the implications of conformity on such issues as banking, insurance and transport, especially in the light of Spain's and Portugal's accession.
The main thrust of the debate is about the membership of Spain and Portugal. The hon. Member for Berkshire, East (Mr. MacKay) questioned the sincerity of the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson). I jump nobly to my hon. Friend's defence. We welcome wholeheartedly the accession of Spain and Portugal, which we believe will help to strengthen the democratic structures in those countries. That view is not paternalistic or patronising.
Even in his speech today, the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) was preaching to other people. It serves no purpose for him to tell us that we should not offer advice to other democratic countries. We welcome Spain as a Socialist country and Portugal as a long-term ally. I make no bones about the fact that we welcome the increase that their accession will represent in the Socialist group in the European Parliament after the direct elections in two years.
However, the accession of Spain and Portugal is not without difficulties, and it would be a disservice to Britain, Spain and Portugal not to spell out and recognise those difficulties. There is no contradiction in welcoming them

for political reasons. We are all politicians, so why should we be ashamed of that? We welcome them for political and other reasons, but we accept that there are some economic difficulties. However, we can and must work together.
I emphasise the difficulties expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton. One is the increased strength of the agriculture lobby. There is also the relative poverty of Spain, and Portugal especially, that will exacerbate the tendency towards economic divergence in the Community. We must also accept that there wilt be increased difficulties in decision making, which no doubt will be welcomed by my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Deakins).
Hon. Members were unconvinced by the Foreign Secretary's assurance that reform of the common agricultural policy would be easier following the accession of Spain and Portugal. That is manifest nonsense. Although I did not agree with the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Forth), he made an excellent speech. As he said, with the exception of Spain and Portugal, farm acreage is increasing by 30 per cent. and the number of consumers by 18 per cent. It is madness to believe that Spain and Portugal will not increase productivity and thereby take advantage of the CAP. Indeed, one reason for their entry to the EEC is to take advantage of it. Production will rise, and there is a danger that surpluses will increase. That is why the reform of the CAP is even more urgent. At every opportunity, we have asked, pushed, pressed and bullied the Government to try to get some real reform of the common agricultural policy. All we receive is the assertion that something is being done. No real reform is taking place.
There may be problems with the accession of Spain and Portugal, but we should not deny that it will create opportunities. No reference has yet been made to the report of the Select Committee on Agriculture that considered the matter. The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. McQuarrie) will especially welcome recommendation No. 18, which states:
We look forward to seeing our Scotch Whisky trade expand considerably.
The Spanish and Portuguese will be looking forward to the opportunity of drinking more of our Scotch whisky, and we shall be happy to provide them with it. We are concerned that the European Community budget has not been adjusted to take account of the accession and its effect on the CAP.
I return to the political implications. We believe that there will be effects on political co-operation. One point that I have been able to glean from the voluminous document on the conclusions of the European Council is contained in article 1 of the draft treaty on foreign policy co-operation, which states: "The High Contracting Parties"—another Euro-jargon phrase—
being members of the European Communities, shall endeavour jointly to formulate and implement a European foreign policy.
We have been at odds with our European partners on a number of issues —for example, on South Africa, where the EEC is anxious to impose more vigorous sanctions, but we are holding back for reasons that I do not have time to explain now. On UNESCO, from which we have given notice to withdraw, our EEC partners are attacking and criticising us. Indeed, at the United Nations we were isolated on the issue of the Falklands—

Mrs. Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Not while the war was on.

Mr. Foulkes: The Prime Minister may think that she can bully our EEC partners into line, in the same way as she can bully Cabinet members into line. That will be more difficult than she imagines. Indeed, there will be pressure on us to come into line with the majority in Europe.
The Opposition welcome wholeheartedly the accession of Spain and Portugal on 1 January. We look forward to a move in the Community towards the Left —a move that, thankfully, will be continued with the return of a Labour Government in Britain.

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Malcolm Rifkind): The hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes) rightly said that this has been a lively debate. I like to think that the Opposition's support of the Government on this matter has contributed, even if only indirectly, to that. However, I hope that the hon. Gentleman realises that if the Labour party enthusiastically welcomes Spain and Portugal into the Community, it is ludicrous that it should reserve the right of a future Labour Government to take Britain out of that same Community.
A number of hon. Members spoke about the democratic identity of Spain and Portugal. The right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) suggested that to raise that matter as being relevant to the question of Spanish and Portuguese membership represented interference in the internal affairs of those countries. There are circumstances in which the right hon. Gentleman's comment might be justified. If, for example, the existing members of the Community said to Spain and Portugal, "Please come and join the Community because of your democratic requirements and because it will strengthen your democratic institutions", that could rightly or wrongly be described as interference.
However, that does not reflect the true position of the Community, which is that every democratic party in Spain and Portugal has said to its people and to the European Community, "We wish to be members of the Community because we believe that the democratic foundations of the new Spain and the new Portugal will be strengthened by membership." It cannot possibly be interference if the countries of the Community say, "We agree with you —that is a relevant consideration and one that should be taken into account."
That was not the only criterion during the negotiations. Had it been it would not have required seven long years of negotiations for these matters to be resolved. The fact that it has taken those seven long years for the applications of Spain and Portugal to be approved by the Community and for a treaty to be formulated shows that the issues go far wider than the right hon. Gentleman suggested. The original date for Spanish and Portuguese membership of the Community was two years ago. That had to be deferred because of the impossibility at that time of reaching agreement on the essential conditions, relevant to the European Community, before membership could take place. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to reflect on his analysis of the background to Spanish and Portuguese membership. It does not stand up to examination.
A number of my hon. Friends, especially my hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. McQuarrie), referred to Gibraltar. My right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary clearly set out our position. No Spanish citizen will be entitled to a pension

from the Gibraltar Government unless he has contributed to the pension fund of that Government. His entitlement will be on exactly the same basis as that of any Gibraltarian who has made comparable contributions through employment in Gibraltar. My right hon. and learned Friend said that the Government had agreed to assist Gibraltar with a significant sum during the first year following Spain's accession. There will be further discussions with Gibraltar on the issue.
The hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) referred to the implications of enlargement for the regional and social funds. He was right to suggest that we should take that into account. The final quota ranges in the regional fund to which Spain and Portugal will be entitled have not yet been determined. However, it is clear that they will be significant, because Spain and Portugal are relatively poor countries within the Community.
That will not necessarily preclude substantial resources coming to the United Kingdom. That will, in part, depend on the total sum of the regional fund. Some time ago the European Council agreed that there should be real increases in the size of the fund, but I accept that our traditional position, where we have been a modest but significant beneficiary, may not continue when the wider entitlement of Spain and Portugal is taken into account. I have no doubt that we will continue to be a major beneficiary of the fund, but the precise amount will need to be determined.

Mr. George Robertson: Why did a Minister representing the Government canvass in favour of a freeze of the regional and social funds at the last meeting of the Budget Council?

Mr. Rifkind: The hon. Gentleman knows that the requirements of budgetary discipline include a reference framework. He is aware that these matters, which come under the non-obligatory side of Community expenditure, have their own constraints, which need to be observed. No quotas are laid down for the allocation of the social fund, so there is no predetermined basis on which we can assume the entitlement of various countries.
The right hon. Member for Bristol, South (Mr. Cocks) spoke eloquently. He raised a constituency interest in asking whether bulk deliveries of wine and sherry would continue to be exported to the United Kingdom for bottling within the United Kingdom. We are not aware of any proposals that would interfere with that traditional practice. We hope that the employment prospects described by the right hon. Gentleman will continue to be available and that nothing will interfere with that.
My hon. Friends the Members for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Forth) and for Wellingborough (Mr. Fry), in eloquent speeches, expressed their concern about the implications of Spanish and Portuguese membership. They clearly indicated their opposition to that. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire for, sometimes single-handedly, raising this issue over a number of years. There is no doubt of his sincerity on this matter.
My hon. Friend asked about the costs that would arise from Spanish and Portuguese membership, and correctly said that the House must take that factor into account. We must consider the transitional arrangements. It is proposed that Spain should achieve broad financial neutrality over the period of transition, whereas Portugal should be a


modest net beneficiary. I am sure that most Members will accept that that is not unreasonable. The gross domestic product per head in Spain is 56 per cent. of the Community average, whereas for Portugal it is only 24 per cent. It is reasonable to take such factors into account.

Mr. Marlow: There is another aspect of the costs that frightens many Conservative Members. My hon. and learned Friend will know that after yesterday's business in Luxembourg more measures will be decided by majority voting rather than unanimously. Within the Community, Spain and Portugal will be pro-Socialist. At times, with those countries in the Community, there will be pressure for more Socialist government. More measures will be presented with a Socialist bias, and that will have cost implications. Is my hon. Friend not concerned about that?

Mr. Rifkind: I have more confidence than my hon. Friend about whether Spain and Portugal should be assumed to have Socialist Governments for all time. They are both democratic societies. Spain had a Conservative Centre-Right Government immediately before its present Administration. Spain and Portugal will no doubt enjoy the democratic pendulum in exactly the same way as it is enjoyed by other member states.

Mr. Foulkes: That will depend upon their electorates.

Mr. Rifkind: Indeed, and that is a sensible criterion to apply.
On the long-term cost implications of enlargement, I agree that we cannot be sure of the exact figures, because many matters cannot possibly be resolved in advance. We do not know what decisions will be taken by the European Community on the details of expenditure. We do not know some of the implications within Spain and Portugal of membership of the Community. The Commission has estimated that, in the long term, the expenditure of the Community on enlargement will represent 1·1 per cent. of the VAT base. The most crucial point is that, thanks to the Fontainebleau agreement, 93 per cent. of any additional, continuing net costs of enlargement will be met by member states other than the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom's involvement is marginal. It is some 7 per cent. of the total, and that is an important consideration.
Hon. Members on both sides of the House have shown by an overwhelming majority that they believe that Spanish and Portuguese membership of the Community is highly desirable. I believe that that view is represented by the vast majority of people in Britain as well as elsewhere in the Community. I commend the Bill to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[Mr. Archie Hamilton.]

Committee tomorrow.

Lothian Region (Edinburgh Western Relief Road) Order Confirmation Bill

Order for Second Reading read.

Mr. Speaker: Before the Second Reading debate begins, may I say that I have not selected the six-months amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Fletcher). His motion, That the Bill be committed to a Joint Committee of both Houses, is in order, and it may be convenient to the House to debate it together with the Second Reading motion.

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
For the last half of this century, the people of Edinburgh have been waiting for tonight's debate. The concept of a western relief road has featured in every plan for Edinburgh for some 50 years. Indeed, the line of the western relief road has been safeguarded by the Government, and in every statutory plan since the war its construction has been supported by the officials of Edinburgh corporation, on which I had the honour to serve as a councillor, and by the officials of Lothian regional council and Edinburgh district council. The relief road is not a motorway or a high-speed road. For almost its whole length it will be subject to a speed limit of 40 mph.
At the provisional order inquiry, evidence was given by the officials of Lothian regional council, including the director of public transport, and by the police in its favour. It is significant that not one official of Edinburgh district council was prepared to give evidence against it at the inquiry.
The purpose of the relief road is to provide a bypass to relieve the intolerable environmental pressure on communities in Gorgie, Dairy and Corstorphine. The construction of the outer city bypass is likely to relieve Corstorphine, but all estimates have shown that it will make traffic from the proposed M8 extension on to the Gorgie-Dalry road worse, much of the Gorgie road lying in my constituency. At present, almost all the traffic from the west goes along the A71 on the Gorgie-Dairy road or along the A8, the Corstorphine road. Both roads are narrow and have shopping centres and schools fronting on the road. There is a very high accident rate on both roads, particularly on the Gorgie-Dalry road. There are about 300 accidents in west Edinburgh every year. About 100 of them involve pedestrians, and in an average year there are about seven deaths.
That brings me to the case for the road and its moral justification. I think that the strongest single reason for the western relief road is that without question it will save lives and reduce personal injury accidents. The streets with the highest personal injury accident rates are those where there is a conflict between heavy volumes of traffic and concentrations of parked cars, service lorries and pedestrians. The relief road will attract a substantial amount of traffic from these streets and in consequence reduce traffic conflict and accidents. It was calculated that the contribution of the relief road would reduce the personal injury accidents by about 60 a year, and the traffic management measures would increase that reduction to about 120 a year. Therefore, the safety considerations are extremely important. In the past three years there have been 21 deaths. The Bill will reduce that grisly figure.
Secondly, for the five sections of the western relief road there are significant employment opportunities. When one takes into account the work of the suppliers from the granite quarries, those making the cement, the binding of materials and the haulage contracting, the road would ensure the employment of 1,500 people for three to four years. Unemployment in my constituency over the last year has gone down by more than 5 per cent., but the issue of enhancing employment opportunities is very real, and there will undoubtedly be employment benefits to other constituencies if the project goes ahead.
Hon. Members who represent Scottish constituencies will have received from the Federation of Civil Engineering Contractors a letter making it clear that employment is of great concern to them and to the trade unions. I have received a message from the managing director of the Tarmac Group who confirms that the general secretaries of the Transport and General Workers Union and of the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians support the Bill. Indeed, it is mentioned in the letter of the federation that there was substantial trade union support for it.
The third reason in favour of the Bill is that the building of the relief road will make it possible to take further steps to reduce the volume, noise and fumes of traffic in Gorgie-Dalry and in Corstorphine, and it will improve conditions for public transport. Without the relief road, no such steps can be taken. The director of transport wants the relief road to be built because it will make it possible for him to run a better and more attractive public transport service. The relief road will allow much higher bus running speeds on existing roads, increasing the popularity of public transport.
In addition, the traffic restraint measures will increase the environmental gains. Beside the A8 and the A71 are 1,800 homes experiencing noise levels above the threshold required for double glazing. The road will cause over 1,000 houses to obtain an important improvement. Indeed, where it is proposed to build a bypass to relieve comparable environmental conditions, there is often a great deal of support for it beyond that in towns and villages. At present, bypasses are under construction to relieve Portobello, Musselburgh and Tranent. The hon. Member for Midlothian (Mr. Eadie), I understand, is supporting a bypass for Dalkeith also, and I wish him well.
I am glad to see the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Strang) present because, I understand, he is only too happy to have a bypass for Musselburgh giving relief to the constituents of Edinburgh, East. But I say to him with the greatest respect that he is seeking to condemn the constituents in the western sector of Edinburgh, particularly in Gorgie-Dairy, to living in increasingly intolerable conditions without relief. For this there is no cure other than the western relief road.
As I explained earlier, all estimates have shown that the outer city bypass with the M8 extension will make traffic on the Gorgie-Dairy road worse if the western relief road is not built.

Mr. Robin Cook (Livingstone): The whole point of the bypass is that it takes the traffic round the obstacle in its path. The whole point of the western relief road is that it will funnel all the traffic to which the hon. Gentleman is referring to a traffic light connection with Lothian road.

Does he really believe that the traffic can be brought to that point with no additional traffic measures without resulting in intolerable traffic pressure in the centre of Edinburgh and eventually in a road through the centre of Edinburgh?

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: I have explained why it will not add to congestion in the centre of Edinburgh, and how congestion in the centre of Edinburgh can be prevented. The Musselburgh bypass gives relief in the eastern sector of the city and, I understand, most of the traffic using it goes on to the centre of the city. That provides relief for the east of Edinburgh. I am asking for relief for the west also. I will deal later specifically with how congestion can be avoided.

Mr. John Home Robertson: What about Musselburgh?

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: I am anxious that many hon. Members should be called to speak, and I wish to get through my speech as quickly as possible.
I am exercised by the concern of my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Fletcher) with the representations of the Cockburn Association and the National Trust for Scotland. For many years I have been a life member of the National Trust for Scotland and the Cockburn Association. If I believed for one moment that the Bill would damage their interests, I should not be proposing it. I sense that they fear what they imagine to be the unknown, but the methods used—

Mr. Ron Brown: Nevertheless, is it not a valid point that the outer city bypass makes more sense than this road? Let us make building the outer road our first priority. If it does not work, we can consider this road.

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: While the outer city bypass will reduce congestion in Corstorphine, all the estimates, and the evidence in the inquiry, have been to the effect that it will increase congestion in Gorgie-Dalry. This is not an advantaged area of Edinburgh, and that is one of the fundamental reasons for the western relief road.
The methods used in prediction techniques in transport planning are standard world wide, and it is indisputable that the traffic witnesses for the objectors at the inquiry admitted that this relief road would not increase traffic in the city centre. Of the 300 accidents a year in the area affected by the relief road, more than half occur in the constituency of Edinburgh, Central which includes Edinburgh city. Most of the accident saving can come within that constituency, which is an important benefit of the Bill. I can give two examples.
Along the A8 going down West Coates into Shandwick place, about 50 injuries or fatal accidents occur each year. That is the heaviest concentration of accidents in the western sector. Hundreds of homes and businesses are also affected by congestion and pollution. The relief road will remove one third to two thirds of the traffic on this road. On the Dairy road, the A70 is a high-density, tenemental area on which occur about 40 accidents each year. The construction of the outer city bypass will increase traffic volumes and, in its turn, the risk of accidents. The relief road would reduce traffic on the Dairy road by about 20 per cent. and would make possible traffic management measures to remove the 80 per cent. of bypassable traffic to that road.
The Gorky road, which is in both the Edinburgh, Central constituency and mine, is also a high-density


tenemental area, with problems of noise and environmental pollution. Even on the short section in Edinburgh, Central, 15 people are killed or injured each year. The outer city bypass increases traffic problems on this road which the relief road will alleviate.

Mr. Ron Brown: This is all academic.

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: It is important for safety considerations, and is thus one of the fundamental points of the Bill.
It should not be forgotten that part of the western approach road has already been opened, from Lothian road in the city centre out to Balgreen, and it is significant that after its opening studies recorded a drop in peak hour traffic in Lothian road. In other words, opening half of the western approach road, far from doing harm, has done some good.
Basically, people come to the city centre only if they have the time and the money. If and when the relief road goes ahead, it will not radically affect the amount of time or money available to the traveller. In the absence of extra time and money, it is unlikely that there will be extra journeys. Traffic within the city centre can, should and must be controlled. The principle behind the Bill is that traffic in the western city area of Edinburgh should be redistributed from residential and shopping areas to the relief road. Even so, the distribution of access points to the city centre will remain the same—from Shandwick place, Queensferry street, the existing west approach road, Morison street and across Fountainbridge. In future, traffic will be able to fan out as it does now.
Because of the environmental improvement measures to Gorgie-Dairy, Stenhouse-Whitson and Corstorphine, the capacity of existing roads will be reduced, but the total road capacity from the west will remain the same. Additional measures will make certain that congestion in the city centre is avoided, thus helping to alleviate the concern of the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Brown). I can give five examples of how this can be done.
First, the present computer-controlled central area traffic light control system can and will distribute traffic between the Lothian road exit and that at Roseburn. Secondly, the council's parking control measures can and do discourage long-stay parking in the city centre. The effect has been to keep peak hour traffic at the same level since 1968.

Mr. Michael J. Martin: I was the chairman of the inquiry and thus had the opportunity of travelling through Corstorphine. I noticed that there was an absence of traffic management schemes, particularly at the peak hour. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, if there were traffic management at Corstorphine, there would be a truer figure of how fast traffic can move in that area and the extent to which the new road could alleviate people's problems?

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: That is a fair question, although the hon. Gentleman has broken the thread of my speech. Corstorphine is a tremendous bottleneck in peak hours, and business men have complained because they want to travel more rapidly instead of being stuck in traffic jams on that road. I am more concerned with Gorgie-Dalry. I am explaining how congestion in the city centre can be prevented.
The third way to avoid congestion is the newly opened railway halts at South Gyle and Livingston, and other

stations at Bathgate and West Lothian, which will soon be open, all of which will provide park-and-ride schemes. This will encourage commuters to leave their cars outside the city. In west Edinburgh, the South Gyle halt was the initiative of councillor Donald Gorge who got the measure through with the support of Conservatives.
The third item is the large multi-storey car park being promoted by the Lothian regional council at the end of the western relief road. The Edinburgh district council has now objected to it and the matter is on appeal to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland. The car park would provide places for 1,500 cars and would prevent congestion. If the district council is so concerned about traffic in the city centre, it should bear in mind the need for proper parking facilities. Not everyone wishes to travel by public transport, and appropriate provision should be made for parking.
A fifth way to prevent congestion in the city centre is to go ahead with the outer city bypass as a priority commitment. This will remove from the city centre all the bypassable traffic.
The conservationist objection represented by the Cockburn Association, which has concerned my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Fletcher), is a relatively new phenomenon. Until shortly before the inquiry, the Cockburn Association did not oppose the road in principle. It argued that it should be single carriageway rather than dual carriageway, and I can give evidence for that. In its newsletter of April 1984, it was confirmed that it held a special meeting and submitted detailed comments to Lothian regional district council. It reported:
These accepted the principle of the road, subject to rigorous conditions.
The road is planned as a dual carriageway, principally for safety reasons. The police stated that they would be strongly opposed to a single carriageway for safety reasons —particularly in connection with access for ambulances and fire engines, if required. Every effort has been made to take account of amenity considerations. In particular, every effort was made to safeguard the industries and employment at Westfield, in my consitituency, by building a viaduct. Also, only one house is to be demolished and the lady concerned, whom I have seen, is already rehoused.
What is more, the Royal Fine Art Commission has discussed with the region at every stage the lay-out of the road and its landscaping, which will be extensive. No fewer than 300,000 trees and shrubs will be planted, and therefore the overall impression will be extremely attractive. A great deal of effort has gone into that.
The Cockburn Association stated in its petition that the procedure is constitutionally unsuitable. I reject the allegation that it was not satisfied that the majority of commissioners gave proper consideration to the effects of the road. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Central still has doubts over the issue —indeed, he has tabled a motion, supported by my hon. Friends the Members for Dumfries (Sir H. Monro) and for Fife, North-East (Mr. Henderson) to refer the matter to a Joint Committee of both Houses. That appears in both petitions. I am certain of the overwhelming justification for the road, and, in a desire to be helpful to my hon. Friend, I shall not oppose the motion. The people of Edinburgh have waited 50 years for the road, and if they have to wait a few more


weeks so that justice is seen to be done, so be it. I hope that it will be for only a few weeks as the contractors are ready to start work.
Lothian regional council's reason for using the procedure of a parliamentary commission was that it would simplify overlapping statutory procedures. I could have been faced with three separate, lengthy public inquiries on, first, the planning aspects of the proposed road; secondly, the land acquisition, apart from the rail diversion; and, thirdly, the rail diversion and associated land acquisition. The public would have had to bear the cost of three major public inquiries.
The procedure of a parliamentary commission enables a public hearing to be held dealing with all the relevant facts leading to the provisional order and to the Bill. It is the only procedure which guaranteed a hearing for all the objectors to the proposal.
The witnesses from the smaller amenity bodies said that they had received a fair hearing and the parliamentary commission procedure has allowed a wider range of compensation than would have been available under the Land Compensation Act 1961. A planning inquiry would not have allowed any other issue to be aired. The two independent commissioners were entirely independent. I believe that the Cockburn Association's attack on the procedure and on the commissioners is wrong.
As I have said, I shall not oppose the motion to refer the Bill to a Joint Committee of both Houses. That is something for which the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East asked in The Scotsman on 28 February this year. He said:
If Labour MPs could not defeat the Bill before or at Second Reading they would certainly want it referred to a Committee of both Houses because of the legal and procedural matters raised.
I will end with the words of a man whom the House of Commons remembers with warmth and affection, the late Frank McElhone. He replied as Minister to my Adjournment debate on this subject and on the outer city bypass on 6 February 1978. He said:
Although I am a great lover of Edinburgh, it figures much smaller in my affection than does Glasgow. However, it is plain that over the years Edinburgh has, as the hon. Member for Ayr said, been plagued by indecision. Whether we talk about opera, sewerage or roads, Edinburgh seems to be plagued with that indecision. Perhaps those in Edinburgh are not gifted with the directness and desire to do things that we have in Glasgow."—[Official Report, 6 February 1978; Vol. 943, c. 1207.]
Tonight we have the opportunity to prove that Edinburgh is capable of the same greatness of character that Frank McElhone knew to exist in Glasgow.
The Bill is in the interests of Scotland because a capital city needs good communications. It is in the interests of Lothian region because it will provide employment for more than 1,550 people for several years. It is in the interests of Edinburgh because it will improve the amenities of thousands of house owners. Above all, it will save lives and reduce personal accidents. This is the moral justification for the Bill and why it deserves to succeed. The Bill is good for Scotland, Edinburgh and its citizens. It stands for progress, and that is why I commend it to the House.

Mr. Alex Fletcher: I have had the privilege of voting for my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton) in all of

the elections in which he has been a candidate, but I shall not be voting for him in any future election. He may know that that is because I have moved out of his constituency.

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Malcolm Rifkind): And moved into his own.

Mr. Fletcher: My hon. and learned Friend is correct. I can now vote for an even better candidate.
I have always been impressed by the interest and hard work of my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West in local issues, and I respect his point of view in this instance. However, what is good for West Edinburgh is not necessarily good for Edinburgh as a whole. The proposed western relief road would benefit one ward of my hon. Friend's constituency, and I know that it could be stretched to cover some parts of my constituency.
I do not think that my hon. Friend would deny that the main traffic problem in West Edinburgh is in the Corstorphine area, which stretches from Drumbrae to Clermiston, a distance of less than half a mile. It is rather absurd that we should vote to spend £37 million on four miles of dual carriageway to overcome this short length of congestion, especially when it will only overcome the traffic problems in West Edinburgh and Corstorphine by transferring them to the centre of the city.

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: Is my hon. Friend not aware that all the evidence at the inquiry was to the effect that the congestion in Gorgie road and Dairy road, much of which is in his constituency, will be far worse once the outer city bypass is constructed? Is he aware also that in Corstorphine there are least four wards and not one?

Mr. Fletcher: I do not think there are four wards between Drumbrae and Clermiston, which is the locality where most of the trouble is. The road is quite broad until it reaches Drumbrae, and it spreads out again immediately after the Clermiston road. My hon. Friend said that the western relief road had been planned for 50 years. I suggest that that is evidence in itself that the plans are out of date. Indeed, we are in the middle of constructing an outer ring road, which will relieve a little pocket in my hon. Friend's constituency and a great deal of traffic from the city as a whole.

Mr. Michael Hirst: In the course of my hon. Friend's research into this issue as a local constituency Member, has he read the transcript of the evidence that was laid before the commission? The evidence of the traffic analysis and projected traffic flows is that even after the ring road is built —it will take away some of the traffic that would otherwise go through Edinburgh —there will still be a substantial amount of traffic passing through the A8 and the Gorgie-Dalry road. It is to relieve these communities that the western relief road is so essential.

Mr. Fletcher: What my hon. Friend is suggesting is only one solution to the problems to which he referred. I and others take the view that the problems at Corstorphine and Gorgie-Dalry can be overcome at much less cost than that proposed by the construction of the western relief road.
I wish to make it clear to those who are not familiar with Edinburgh that the relief road is not an Edinburgh city bypass. That bypass is being built at enormous public expense and will be ready for opening by about 1990. It


is of great significance to all traffic problems in Edinburgh, and that is why Edinburgh Members are most grateful that construction of the road is well in hand.
The relief road is not planned to decrease city centre traffic. On the contrary, it will increase the amount of traffic entering the middle of the city. It will invite vehicles into the city centre traffic jams and tend to make them worse. The relief road will be a story of misspent millions and misplaced party loyalty. It is not wanted by those whom I meet in the city centre and nor is it wanted by groups which take an interest in their local environment and local amenities. I can assure my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West that I do not accept that we must spend £40 million to ensure his return to the House after the next general election. I believe that we can confidently expect him to return here at much less public expenditure.
I have conceded already that Corstorphine has traffic problems between Drumbrae and Clermiston and Fermaston, a distance of half a mile. However, other remedies are available there and elsewhere. I contend that the relief road proposal is out of proportion to the size of the problem.
The issue of the relief road was raised during the 1983 general election campaign, and I was put under pressure. I did not always welcome those who tended to follow me round and ask, "Are you going to oppose the western relief road?" My reply was, "Frankly, I know little about it." That was the position. The hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) might confirm that the boundary changes that affected the two of us occurred at a late stage before the general election. That was mainly because there were two public inquiries into what should be the boundaries of what is now the Edinburgh, Central constituency.
I told those who were asking me whether I opposed the relief road that after the election I would consider the matter most carefully and then make my decision. That is what I did. I discussed the issue with my regional councillor, the late Ian Cramond, who spearheaded the proposal in the region. I had discussions also with consultants, council officials and others in the constituency, including members of my constituency association, before reaching the conclusion that the road as proposed was not welcome and would not be beneficial to my constituents. My position has been known now for almost two years.

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: Why is it that every Conservative regional councillor supports the relief road, including those in my hon. Friend's constituency?

Mr. Fletcher: I am amazed that a former Whip should ask why Conservative councillors of a tightly balanced region should all take the same line on the proposal.
In October 1983, the region decided to construct the road and applied to the then Edinburgh district council for planning consent. The council gave its approval in February in 1984, subject to various but important detailed conditions being greed. Agreement on those conditions was never arrived at and, despite strong objections and requests for a public inquiry, which I supported, the region took the less helpful route of opting for further discussion. As the House knows, it promoted a provisional order. A parliamentary inquiry followed, which lasted for no fewer than 52 days. I understand that my hon. Friend the

Member for Strathkelvin and Bearsden (Mr. Hirst) feels rather sore about that, because he was one of the commissioners.

Mr. Hirst: Does my hon. Friend accept that the parliamentary inquiry was the only forum at which the details of the proposal, including the diversion of the railway, compulsory purchase orders and planning permission, could be discussed? Had the application to the district council for planning permission been approved without a public inquiry, the people of Edinburgh who allegedly object to the scheme would never have had the opportunity to make their views known. Does my hon. Friend accept that the parliamentary inquiry fulfilled the right to consultation?

Mr. Fletcher: I do not think that it is important whether I accept that. Most of the objectors who participated in the inquiry did not think that the inquiry met their requirements. They would have preferred a public inquiry. They felt that that procedure would have given them greater access and would have allowed them to make their case. I agree that the parliamentary inquiry allowed all these matters to be considered, including the railway diversion, but the railway issue could have been dealt with separately. Indeed, I understand that that issue has yet to be resolved. That could have been dealt with as a separate issue, and a public inquiry could have taken place in the normal way, which is what the objectors wanted.

Mr. Martin: Had it not been for the railway, a parliamentary inquiry could not have been conducted. That would not have been possible if the only issue had been the road.

Mr. Fletcher: Yes, I understand that. The parliamentary commissioners ruled that the objectors were entitled to two thirds of their costs. I understand that the region claims that that ruling is ultra vires and refuses to pay the costs. I respect the legal point that may exist, but I hope that the region will consider its position. It is extremely costly for members of the public to make representations when such important matters are being discussed. I have been an objector to a number of schemes, and I know the effort, time and costs involved.
No one will be surprised to learn that Edinburgh has a proud history of preserving its architectural heritage. not least against the road lobby. As the hon. Member who represents the old and the new towns in Edinburgh, I have a duty to foster that tradition, even against a Conservative council, which I do with reluctance. I do not believe that this should be a party political occasion.
I do not go lightly against the Lothian region or my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West, but my judgment of what is right for my constituents must take precedence over other considerations. I accept that conservationists are not always right, but in Edinburgh they have been right more often than not. I quote an article that appeared in The Scotsman in October 1983 on this issue. It reads:
Edinburgh, the only British. City which has not been. a happy hunting ground for road planners over the past 20 years, owes its escape to broad based campaigns which in 1966, 1970, 1973, 1976 and 1979 told all the experts and most politicians they were wrong. As a result, there is no motorway under Charlotte Square, above Tollcross, over the Meadows, across the Royal Mile, round the bridges, through Calton Hill, and next to the New Town".
That is excellent for Edinburgh.
Opposition to the relief road is broadly based. It stands alongside the campaigns to which the article in The Scotsman was referring. No fewer than 38 organisations believe that the proposals supported by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West represent a major threat to the city's environment. These include the National Trust for Scotland, the Cockburn Association, the Scottish Civic Trust, the Architectural Heritage Society, no fewer than 17 residents' associations, six community councils and 11 amenity groups. The views of these various organisations must be taken into account when we decide whether the Bill should receive a Second Reading.

Mr. Hirst: rose—

Mr. Fletcher: I know that my hon. Friend wishes to participate in the debate, and I think that I should proceed with my speech so that I can leave time for him.
I have recited what I consider to be an impressive list of organisations in Edinburgh which are opposed to the relief road, and their objections deserve the closest consideration by the House.
The main reasons for the objections include increased traffic congestion in the city centre. The western relief road may relieve the western approach to Edinburgh, but that will be achieved at the expense of the city centre. The road will funnel traffic into the centre of Edinburgh. There are no intermediate junctions for traffic to leave or to join the proposed road between the periphery near Edinburgh airport and the central area. Like any other new road, it will attract more traffic, including heavy vehicles, to the city centre. There is no evidence from the consultants to support the contrary.
The road will be connected directly with the M8, making it, in effect, an extension of the motorway into the city centre. When the region first made the proposal, it was proud to talk of it as an extension of the motorway. It will be a dual carriageway and will be built on stilts. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West underlined that there will be a speed restriction of 40 mph. Now it is referred to only as safe dual carriagway leading into the city centre. Even that more modest presentation will encourage at least some of the traffic to continue through the city centre when the new ring road, which will be completed shortly, would be more appropriate.
Areas in my constituency such as Roseburn, Haymarket, Tollcross and the Meadows will be adversely affected. The Meadows are the southern boundary of my constituency and the northern boundary of the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, south (Mr. Ancram), who is not prepared to bat even an eyelid lest his neutrality is questioned. Congestion in that part of the town could lead to demands for widening of the road at the Meadows —a precious part of Edinburgh's green belt.
There are fears for the stability of many listed buildings in the old and new towns in the city. All of this is to save only an estimated two minutes on a typical journey from the western periphery to the city centre, a distance of four miles. On arriving at the city centre, drivers will find a bigger than ever traffic jam at Lothian road.
My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West claimed that the proposed road would reduce the number of accidents. With respect, that is misleading because the road and all that is claimed of it will not solve anything.

It will shift problems elsewhere. The congestion caused in the central area of the city will be just as likely to create as many accidents as those that my hon. Friend claims are caused by congestion in Corstorphine and in Drumbrae Dalry. Shifting the problem from one part of the city to another will not solve anything.

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: Is my hon. Friend aware that traffic management measures on the other roads which go through his constituency, such as Dalry road, can reduce the volume of traffic on those roads? What is proposed is merely a redistribution of existing traffic and not an increase of traffic into the city centre.

Mr. Fletcher: I am coming to what improvements might be made. I accept that improvements could be made to the western road system, but I do not think those have to be achieved by funnelling all the traffic on to one road with just one exit in the city centre. That is the basis of many complaints about the system. There could be better traffic management measures, such as junction improvements and road realignments, as well as improved parking facilities. Those could be carried out at a cost of a very few million pounds compared to the proposed expenditure of nearly £40 million.
I note what my hon. Friend said about the motion that I have on the Order Paper that the Bill should be committed to a Joint Committee of both Houses. I do not propose to enlarge upon that. If that were the decision of the House, it would allow further discussion on some of these matters.
Much discussion here and outside the House is concerned with inner city deprivation. I confess that Edinburgh has problems, but by no means can it be regarded as a deprived inner city area. Edinburgh ratepayers could think of better things to do with £40 million; for example, a cut in the rates would be much more warmly welcomed than the proposed road. My hon. Friends complain frequently about the extravagant plans of Edinburgh district council. How can they justify expenditure on a road that is largely unwanted? No doubt the region believes earnestly that the relief road would be good for Edinburgh, but Edinburgh thinks otherwise. Why not simply save the money and have the benefit of a cut in public expenditure on the one hand and being popular at the same time?
I repeat that the proposed road will not be a city bypass but will shift a traffic problem within the city. The House is being asked to decide on a matter where the majority of Edinburgh opinion is at best opposed to the road and is at worst evenly divided. In those circumstances, the House should follow the excellent traditions of the Chair; we should support the status quo by voting against the Bill.

Mr. Michael J. Martin: My hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson) approached me while he was a Scottish Whip to ask if I would take part in an inquiry in Edinburgh. I asked the obvious question about how long it would take. He replied that the local authority, the promoter of the Bill, had said that it would take three or four weeks. That was a ridiculous assumption by the local authority. Some people who gave evidence were in the witness box for seven or eight days.
The hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton) mentioned landscaping. He will know


that landscaping was not referred to in the proposal that was before the inquiry, yet we had a witness giving evidence for three days about how many trees would be planted along the proposed road. It was ridiculous that the promoters of the Bill gave an estimate of three or four weeks for the inquiry when they knew that it would take longer. In fact, it took three and half months.

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: In clause 36, which deals with preservation of amenity, landscaping and tree planting have been mentioned, so they are taken into account.

Mr. Martin: If the hon. Gentleman reads the evidence, he will note that that clause was not in the original legislation.
In an intervention in the speech of the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Fletcher) I made it clear that had it not been for the railway there would not have been a parliamentary inquiry about the road. If we allow the legislation to go through, we will set a precedent. For the first time in the history of private legislation in Scotland a road was tied in with a railway. If it had been only the railway that was under consideration, the parliamentary commissioners would have taken only about three weeks for the inquiry.

Mr. Hirst: rose—

Mr. Martin: I am not giving way. The hon. Gentleman will have an opportunity to make a speech.
As parliamentary commissioners, we received strong legal advice straight away from the clerks, who are also counsel to the Secretary of State for Scotland, that every statutory means should he used by the local authority before it sought a parliamentary inquiry.
The only reason for a parliamentary inquiry was the railway. There was nothing to stop the local authority from drafting another piece of private legislation when only the railway was under consideration. The other proposals in the Bill could have been covered adequately by ordinary planning permission or a planning inquiry.
It is nonsense to suggest, as officials of Lothian region suggested in their evidence, that the reason for a parliamentary inquiry was to provide a public forum for the good people of Edinburgh. Another argument for the parliamentary inquiry was that it would save money. It is difficult to accept talk of making savings on public inquiries when one is considering spending £40 million. The main consideration of a local authority on an issue such as this should be to ensure that everyone has an opportunity to express a point of view for or against the proposal.
As I understand it, a person wishing to object to this legislation would have to petition to become an opposer or an objector at the parliamentary inquiry. There is nothing to stop someone from appearing in person as an objector at a parliamentary inquiry, but that is rather like saying that there is nothing to stop a person accused of a serious crime from turning up at the High Court and appealing on his or her own behalf. Anyone with any sense would urge people to get proper legal counsel in such a situation and it was no accident that every body which petitioned for or against had a Queen's counsel and a junior present at the parliamentary inquiry.
I complained bitterly about the hearing lasting three and a half months, but it would have lasted a great deal longer

if the Cockburn Association had not decided to be the umbrella organisation for all the petitioners against the proposal, apart from the railway and the district council. The hearing might have lasted many months if they had all chosen to appear as individuals rather than under the umbrella organisation.
I hope that hon. Members will bear in mind that our consideration of the legislation is not solely on the merits of the road. We are here to examine legislation and to ensure that the House is not abused. We must make sure that the legislation is properly drafted and worded. As parliamentary commissioners in Edinburgh, we had to consider what the wishes of the House would be and I know that hon. Members who are more experienced parliamentarians than I am are very particular about the wording of legislation.
If a railway is diverted by means of parliamentary legislation, someone 100 years hence must be able to identify where the railway was diverted to. That could not happen in this case. The legal advice was that the proposal was ambiguous as to the location of the new railway layout. Although I expressed my dissent and concern and voted in favour of the legal advice, I was overruled. The plans which the commissioners accepted by a majority decision are not the plans before us now. The plans have been changed since we left Edinburgh. Therefore, the decision taken in Edinburgh is not the one that we shall take tonight.
The officials of the regional council told us at the parliamentary inquiry that the road would be a dual carriageway. I said that there were dual carriageways and dual carriageways, and I asked them to describe a dual carriageway similar to that in the proposal. I was told that the nearest thing to the proposed plan was the Clydeside expressway in my native city of Glasgow.
There are dual carriageways in my constituency that are very quiet, and if someone were to describe a dual carriageway I would think of one of those which are in housing estates and therefore do not have much traffic. The Clydeside expressway is not a typical dual carriageway. It is sectioned off and the public cannot cross it. Workmen who were late for work were injured when they tried to cross the expressway with using the overhead bridges. It is more like a motorway without a hard shoulder. I do not think that the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West would like such a road in his back yard.
Many people believe that Glasgow has a terrific motorway system, and I grant that that is so, but, having lived in Glasgow all my life, I believe that the people who get most benefit from the motorway system in Glasgow are not the people living in Glasgow, but those living outside the city. The expressway is in the Anderston district where I was brought up. A whole community was destroyed and streets, schools, churches and places of historical interest disappeared from the face of the earth.
I later moved to Townhead. I first heard of the Townhead interchange when Lord Ross of Marnock pressed a detonator, blew up a wall and set the interchange on its way. There are areas in Townhead which no one would recognise. People have been pushed to the four winds because of the motorway system there. Everyone can say "Hear, hear" for the motorway system in Glasgow, except the majority of Glaswegians. In my own constituency of Springburn, where I live, many difficulties are caused by motorway proposals.

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: Will the hon. Gentleman accept that there is a fundamental difference between the environment in which he was brought up, where whole communities were broken up by the wide-scale demolition of buildings, and this proposal, where only one house is to be demolished and where satisfactory settlement has been made for the occupant affected?

Mr. Martin: The plans for motorways in Glasgow were drawn up in 1964. Some of the plans which were still on the drawing board in 1964 have suddenly been resurrected now, and there is still motorway building in Glasgow. In fact, there have been several inquiries in my constituency.
I am trying to explain to hon. Members that the proposal could mean the beginning of a motorway system in Edinburgh. The hon. Member for Edinburgh, West, who knows Edinburgh better than I do, will realise that when this relief road reaches the approach road there will be heavy traffic going right to the foot of the castle, the most important tourist attraction in the country. He should think very carefully about what might happen.
I am glad the hon. Gentleman accepts that a Joint Committee of both Houses should consider this matter. I took the word of my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian, who had taken the word of the local authority, that the inquiry would last about three and a half weeks. In fact, I could not come to the House for three and a half months. If the House instructs a Member to do something in another part of the country, he must accept that duty, and I make no complaint about it. I object, however, to a Queen's counsel who has nothing to do with the House advising a client—I do not blame the regional council, because it had to take advice—to lump the road and the railway together to obtain a parliamentary inquiry.
Because the scheme was opposed, the House had to find two commissioners from this House and two from another place. As no one in the other place bothered to put any names forward, we had to have two people from outside the parliamentary system. I strongly object to the fact that for three and a half months I could not represent my constituents here. In a Parliament in which the Government had a very small majority, or no overall majority at all, as occurred under the Labour Government, it would be absurd to deprive the House of attendance by Members because of private legislation instigated by people outside. In my view, parliamentary commissions should not be set up until the petitioners have been through every other statutory procedure at their disposal.
Finally, I urge the House to consider seriously, not just the terms of the legislation, but the damage that could be done to a very beautiful city. In my three and a half months in Edinburgh, I came to know the Mound, the old town and the university area well. To me, it is a lovely thing to see people living in the centre of one of our cities. It reminded me of the Glasgow of my childhood, when people lived in the city centre. I believe that if we allow a road system of this kind to go through the city of Edinburgh we shall risk losing something that other major cities in the United Kingdom are striving very hard to retain.

The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Michael Ancram): It may be for the convenience of the House if I intervene briefly at this stage to explain the

position of the Government and of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State under the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act 1936 in relation to this confirmation Bill.
Where a provisional order made under the provisions of the 1936 Act is opposed, arrangements are made for an inquiry to be held before parliamentary commissioners. Counsel for the promoters of the order and objectors to it appear before the commissioners and lead evidence. Following the hearing, the commissioners submit a report to the Secretary of State in which they recommend that the order should be issued, or should be rejected, or should be issued with modifications. That was the procedure adopted in this instance. In the case of the Western Relief road order, following an inquiry which sat on no fewer than 52 days over a period of three months, the commissioners found in favour of the council, but with such qualifications as to require the deposit of a modified order under the private legislation procedure. The plans for the road also had to be cleared by the Department of Transport railways inspectorate because of the close proximity of the proposed road to the Edinburgh to Glasgow and Dundee railway.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State was not, therefore, in a position to introduce the Bill in the House until the end of June. He took the view that introduction at that stage of the Session would not be for the convenience of the House as it seemed unlikely that there would be adequate time for the important issues at stake to be fully discussed. The Government have presented the Bill in the new Session so that it can be fully and properly discussed.
It would, in theory, have been open to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to refuse to accept the recommendations of the parliamentary commissioners, but successive Secretaries of State have honoured the undertaking given during the passage of the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act 1933, which was consolidated in the 1936 Act, that the Secretary of State would treat such recommendations with the fullest respect and would not set them aside other than in exceptional circumstances. Accordingly, my right hon. Friend has submitted the order to Parliament in the form of the confirmation Bill which is now before the House.
The role of the Secretary of State in introducing the Bill is essentially formal. In particular, my right hon. Friend's decision to introduce the Bill is not to be taken as implying any view on his part on the merits of the order, but merely as enabling the appropriate parliamentary procedure to take place. I therefore see my role today as that of a catalyst, and I do not propose to utter any view for or against the provisions of the Bill.

Mr. Home Robertson: The Minister sets great store by the authority, standing and status of the parliamentary commissioners. For the record, will he tell the House who the commissioners were and who appointed those who were not members of either House?

Mr. Ancram: The commissioners are appointed by the House authorities, and that is what happened in this case.

Mr. Home Robertson: They were appointed by the Secretary of State.

Mr. Ancram: I have listened with care and attention to the comments that have been made about the way in


which the procedure was followed in this instance, and I suspect that there will be more comments to come. I have taken careful note of the the points made today. Extensive consultation, especially with the Chairman of Ways and Means, would be necessary if any review of the procedure were to take place, but I believe —I think that there is support from historical precedent for this —that the circumstances surrounding this provisional order were exceptional. A wide range of business has been conducted under these procedures in the past 49 years, but so far as I am aware those other instances did not reveal anything particularly defective about the procedures themselves.

Mr. Martin: On previous occasions the petitioners were careful to restrict this type of legislation to bridges and railways. In no circumstances were roads involved, except in the case of approach roads —for instance, the approach road to the Kingston bridge. I agree that in more than 40 years no difficulties have arisen, but no previous legislation has involved a major stretch of road going through an urban area.

Mr. Ancram: I listened to the hon. Gentleman. He is as aware as I am that the regional council would have required parliamentary powers to divert the Edinburgh-Glasgow railway if the road were to be built. The regional council was entitled to decide to promote a wider provisional order. When the order was deposited, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State was obliged under the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act 1936 to make appropriate arrangements for the order to be considered. The provisional order may have been wider than is sometimes the case, but in the circumstances the procedures were carried out properly.
All hon. Members involved in Edinburgh welcome the construction of the outer city bypass, which should improve traffic conditions in Edinburgh and provide a fast and convenient route for traffic wishing to avoid the city centre. I take full account of the planned works on the bypass in determining Lothian region's capital allocation each year, and our arrangements to give grant assistance for the remaining sections of the bypass will also have the benefit of significantly relieving the burden on Lothian ratepayers.
Where, as in this case, a petition against an order comprised in the confirmation Bill is presented timeously, there is also, as my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton) correctly pointed out, provision under section 9 of the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act 1936 for the matter to be referred to a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament. The motion before the House, which we shall consider together with the main motion, is clearly competent. The House must decide whether a sufficient case has been made for it. The Government's position on that, as on the question of the principle of the Bill, is neutral. I trust that the House will accept that the Government have fulfilled the responsibilities expected of them regarding the provisional order.

Mr. John Maxton: As the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Fletcher) said, the Minister, the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Ancram), will not bat an eyelid that may suggest that he is anything other than neutral. My hon. Friend the Member

for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) and I, representing the Labour Front Bench, believe that we should not express an opinion. However, unlike the Minister, at the end of my remarks I shall say how I intend to vote on a personal basis. It might have been for the convenience of the House if the Minister, as an Edinburgh Member, had told the House how he intended to vote as the Bill affects his constituency. Some of his hon. Friends will watch with interest to see how he casts his vote, if he votes.
The hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton) will agree that even among his hon. Friends he comes from a privileged background. It appears that he is a highly privileged. hon. Member because twice within seven days the House has debated Bills designed to protect his small 500 majority. Last week, when we debated the Housing (Scotland) Bill, some hon. Members said that it was designed to protect him, and his hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Central said the same this evening.

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that people living in Gorgie and Etalry are in no way from an advantaged or privileged background, and that the Bill will alleviate the intolerable circumstances in which they live, which can only get worse when the outer city bypass is built? [HoN. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]

Mr. Maxton: The hon. Gentleman received a great deal of support for his intervention, but his hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Central did not take part in it. Clearly, the House cannot be divided along party lines on this matter. There are divisions within the Conservative party, and, without going into last week's politics, that is not wholly uncommon in the Scottish Conservative party.

Mr. Home Robertson: The hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton) is one of my constituents, and I should have mixed feelings if he lost his job. The hon. Gentleman lives in my constituency and, presumably, goes to his constituency occasionally. If the western relief road were built, he would probably go straight through the centre of Edinburgh to get from his home in East Lothian to his constituency in west Edinburgh, whereas it would be much more appropriate for him to go round the city on a completed outer city bypass.

Mr. Maxton: I shall not become involved with my hon. Friend's constituents, as I am sure that he looks after their interests, and perhaps even those of the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West.
Conservative Members are divided on the matter, and their party's two House of Commons parliamentary commissioners also take opposite sides. There are no divisions in the Labour party's ranks on this issue. Although the alliance parties hold the balance of power on Lothian regional council, which is promoting the Bill, none is present to say where the alliance stands on the issue.
As a Glaswegian, I am loth to take too large a part in the controversy. As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Springburn (Mr. Martin) investigated the matter for three months, he is entitled to intervene, although he is a Glaswegian too. Although all Glaswegians reluctantly must go to Edinburgh on occasions, we do not know the geography of the city as well as Edinburgh Members.
Obviously, there are traffic congestion problems. The hon. Member for Edinburgh, West argued cogently why the congestion in his constituency should be relieved. However, his hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Central argued equally cogently why the relief road should not be built until we see whether Edinburgh traffic is relieved by the bypasses around Edinburgh. Each of my hon. Friends must decide how to vote, and they will have received a great deal of advice. They must pay attention to what the majority of the parliamentary commissioners recommended, but equally they should pay careful attention to the valid points of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Springburn, the chairman of that commission. My hon. Friends have listened to the arguments of their friends within Edinburgh and Lothian region, and all Labour Members pay high regard to the views of those in Edinburgh whom they know best.
I intend to vote against the Bill. However, if the Bill is passed, I warmly welcome the disclosure that the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West is prepared to accept the procedure of a Joint Committee of both Houses because at least that will allow the matter to be considered in more detail before the proposal is passed. Therefore, I ask my hon. Friends to weigh their decision carefully before they cast their votes.

Mr. Michael Hirst: I was amused to hear my colleague, the hon. Member for Glasgow, Springburn (Mr. Martin), say that his Whip approached him smiling and asked him to go to Edinburgh as a parliamentary commissioner, and that his Whip believed that the inquiry would last about three and a half weeks. That was not my experience. My Whip did not smile, but merely said, "There is a job to be done in Edinburgh. It may take three weeks or it may take slightly longer, but you should be back well and truly before Christmas."
I sympathise with some of the hon. Gentleman's views, because, like him, I always find it frustrating to be away from Parliament for a long time. I do not complain about that, because I recognise that it is a duty which from time to time falls on hon. Members. I hope that I can honestly look all hon. Members straight in the eye when I say that I endeavoured to do my duty as a commissioner to the best of my ability.
It has not been easy to cope with all the demands of one's constituents, and my colleagues on the commission recognised and readily acknowledged that I had a substantial amount of work to do, but I do not believe that any of my constituents suffered because I had to be away from the House for three and a half months. That should be borne in mind by any other hon. Member who finds himself similarly dispatched to a parliamentary commission in future.
Having kept fairly silent on the matter for the nine months in which the commission was completing its work, I must say now that it sat for an unnecessarily long time, and criticism that is made of the procedure and the time in which two Members of Parliament were involved must be tempered by the fact that there were ways in which the proceedings could have been truncated. There need not have been such lengthy bouts of evidence as we received. I think that the chairman of the commission will

acknowledge that some of the objectors indulged in flights of fancy. I remind him of the Cowgate boulevard, a preposterous suggestion which wasted two and a half days of evidence.
While I am sensitive to what the hon. Member for Springburn has said about the cumbersome nature of a parliamentary commission, I believe that, if the commission had been run in a much more businesslike way, it would have been possible to sit for a much shorter period and still to give all the objectors and the promoters adequate opportunity to put their points of view.

Mr. Martin: Surely the hon. Member will recall that the proposers took longer in giving evidence than the objectors. A witness gave evidence that the Cowgate was to be extended into a dual carriageway, and we, the commissioners, asked for more evidence. Therefore, it was to satisfy the commissioners that the matter of the Cowgate was considered for an extra two and a half days.

Mr. Hirst: I am sure that it would be to the amusement and edification of the House if we indulged in a re-run of some of our spirited discussions, but it is fair to say that the promoters, who are putting forward such a major scheme, must inevitably spend time in justifying their proposal. The function of the commissioners was to examine and take a decision on the merits of the scheme, and that necessarily involved an exhaustive examination of the merits of the case.
There was indeed an exhaustive and painstaking examination of the merits of the scheme. Having approached my duties initially in an entirely neutral way, I found myself, as the scheme unfolded, attracted to the logic and merits of the scheme. I believe that the case was conclusively proved. The significant point is not that I found it conclusively proved but that a majority of the commissioners came to that conclusion.
As some hon. Members may know, the other two commissioners were people with no party affiliation and with no preconceived notion about the matter. They were entirely independent in regard to their appointment and the way in which they made their decision. It is significant that, after 53 days of painstaking consideration, the two independent lay commissioners and myself found the merits of the scheme conclusively proved. Not only were the merits of the scheme conclusively proved, but every available opportunity was afforded to objectors to come before the commission to state their case and to have it tested under the most rigorous cross-examination. The two lay commissioners and myself came to the conclusion that the objectors' contentions and fears could not be established in evidence and under cross-examination.

Mr. Martin: The hon. Member will surely recall that a motion was moved by me, the wording of which was not disputed, that in view of the strong legal advice being given by Queen's counsel, the commissioners should reject the legislation. Therefore, the hon. Member is not telling the full story, because he knows full well that there was strong legal advice in favour of rejecting the legislation.

Mr. Hirst: I do not mind the hon. Member doing me an injustice, but in making that statement he does a significant injustice to the non-parliamentary commissioners, who exercised their duties as commissioners with great diligence and pondered all the points put to them with a great deal of care and principle.
We have heard this evening a reiteration of many of the fears that were expressed by objectors who came before the commission. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Fletcher) has reiterated many of the fears in his speech. I accept that for the past five and a half years my hon. Friend has been trammelled with ministerial duties, and that in addition, as a result of changes in his boundary, he suddenly found that his constituency included an area that he previously had not known. But I have to say to him, with all the kindness in my heart, that clearly he has not examined carefully the evidence that was laid before the commission, and which is available to him to inspect in the Library if he is so minded this evening. Many of the points that he has made were made in the course of the commission's proceedings. They were repeated by objectors and subjected to careful cross-examination so that the facts could be established. If the fears that he has expressed this evening had been substantiated at the commission, the commissioners might very well have taken a different view.

Mr. Fletcher: My hon. Friend has an advantage over me as to much of the detail, because he spent 52 days in listening to it. He did his job as a commissioner and I did mine as a Member of Parliament. While he was sitting on the commission, I was taking advice and sounding opinion in my constituency. I did that not just for 52 days but for about 5,052 days before reaching my conclusions, which I have expressed in the debate.

Mr. Hirst: I greatly respect my hon. Friend, and I respect his right to come to a view based on his perception of the facts and on the views expressed to him by his constituents. But the points that he made in his speech received the most rigorous examination in the course of the commission's proceedings, and a full transcript of the evidence is available for all to see in the Library of the House of Commons. That transcript is helpful to any hon. Member who is genuinely confused by the claims and counter-claims and wishes to see what the professional witnesses and the objectors said about the matter, and the conclusions expressed by counsel appearing at the commission.

Mr. Fletcher: I am marginally older than my hon. Friend and I have read and listened to expert advice. I think that I am able to judge as well as anybody else the views of professional experts and their ability to forecast what traffic congestion may be.

Mr. Hirst: I understand that point of view, but I doubt whether my hon. Friend could find more esteemed or distinguished witnesses anywhere else in Britain. When the objectors brought forward similar professional witnesses to argue against the points that had been made, their evidence could not be sustained under the rigorous cross-examination which ensued.
My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Central referred to the number of bodies associated with the objections to the proposals, in particular the National Trust for Scotland and the Scottish Civic Trust, to which both bodies I belong in one or other capacity. Neither of those bodies invited their members, in Edinburgh or more widely in Scotland, to express an opinion on those points. I do not presume to say, as a result, that their association with the objections should be disregarded, but one tends to get a knee-jerk reaction when a proposal is made which

has not been exhaustively examined in public. Frankly, I wonder whether those involved in the National Trust for Scotland now would, if they studied the proposal and the safeguards imported into it, reach the view today which they reached when they associated themselves with the objections.
Various points have been made about the character of the road. It is not my function, nor do I want, to get down to the nitty-gritty points of the proposal, but I must remind my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Central that his contention that the road would be a motorway is not the case. The analogy with the Clydeside expressway is nearer the mark, although if the hon. Member for Springburn recalls the plans over which we pored for many days, he will remember that there was a hard shoulder element, so that the Clydeside expressway is a comparator, if not a strict one.
The road is not a motorway, nor does it have a direct link with the M8. There is a grade separated junction, and that is of vital importance. My hon. Friend and I travel extensively throughout central Scotland and frequently move from motorways to dual carriageways by means of grade separated junctions.
Indeed, recently I risked my life travelling with my hon. Friend, though I risked it without fear. He is a regular motorist and will know that drivers adjust to the speeds which can reasonably and safely be done on roads. It is clear from the design of the proposed road that it would not be driven on under motorway conditions.

Mr. Gerald Malone: I travel with my hon. Friend frequently, and I refuse to set a price on my life when I am a passenger in his vehicle. Will he comment on the safety aspect of this road? Hon. Members on both sides will have received representations from organisations about the safety aspect. It has been represented that if the development goes ahead, there will be a substantial increase in safety, with a probable reduction in road injuries.

Mr. Hirst: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. Expert witnesses who gave evidence on road design, as well as the assistant chief constable, were categoric in their professional opinion that the road would enhance safety standards not just on the road but in the areas which would be relieved by having lower levels of traffic. There would, therefore, be less risk to pedestrians and other road users. The assistant chief constable of Lothians and Borders police was emphatic in his belief that the design would give the road a level of safety that could not exist on the roads that the project would relieve.
My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh. Central asked whether the development would lead to other road schemes—whether, for example, there would be further developments in other parts of Edinburgh which might arouse the fears of local inhabitants. I remind him that officials of Lothian regional council who gave evidence were emphatic that their plans for the city of Edinburgh included no project that would lead to further developments in Edinburgh.
My hon. Friend can consult the structure plan for Lothian regional council, in which he will see set out clearly the priorities for the region's roads development programme for the next 10 years. His fear that this development could lead to further road developments is unfounded.
I regret that it is necessary for me to chide my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Central on these points. I do so because he repeated some of the fears to which I listened for many days. Because I was satisfied at the end of the day that such fears had been laid to rest as a result of the evidence, it is only fair that I should bring such matters to the attention of the House.
I have made it clear that the police were firm in their evidence about the safety of the road. Evidence was also led by the director of passenger transport in Lothian making it clear that the creation of the road would help the smoother flow of traffic, in particular buses, in the city, with consequential benefits throughout the city.
As one who comes from the west and enjoys the transport system run by the Strathclyde passenger executive, I am envious of the record of Lothian Regional Transport, which is virtually unrivalled in the rest of Britain for punctuality and quality of service. I am entitled, therefore, to attach considerable importance to the evidence that was led by the director of Lothian Regional Transport.
My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Central should remember that residents appeared before the commission for the promoters and the objectors. Those who appeared for the promoters were prepared to talk of the noise and pollution and environmental disturbance as a result of the traffic volumes in their areas. They were residents not simply of Corstorphine and the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton). They also came from GorgieDalry, where the proximity of the houses to the road makes matters of environmental pollution all the more nauseating for them.
The professional witnesses who appeared before the commission were of extremely high calibre, and the fact that they succeeded in convincing not just me but the other two lay commissioners speaks volumes for the quality of their advice and the opinions that we received and respected.
For the benefit of the House, I can do no better than quote from a recent letter from Professor Donald MacKay, who wears many hats. He has been an adviser to Labour and Conservative Secretaries of State and his professional expertise is widely respected throughout the country. In other words, his views on this matter must be taken on board.
The letter from which I quote was written not in the spirit of someone writing to his MP but rather in the spirit of a professional witness succinctly summarising the aspects of the project that appealed to him. As time in the debate is not pressing —there is not a plethora of speakers anxious to address the House —I trust that hon. Members will grant me the indulgence of quoting from the letter because it fairly summarises the position. Professor MacKay says that the western relief road is essentially a bypass for the residents of Corstorphine and GorgieDalry. He continues:
All the studies indicate that the construction of the WRR would take a large volume of traffic out of existing residential and shopping areas and transfer that traffic to a purpose built road, saving lives and accidents, reducing traffic noise and improving the quality of life. All the expert evidence, including the traffic experts called for the opposition at the Parliamentary

Commission, accepted that the WRR would not increase the volume of traffic travelling along the radial routes in the western sector.
That is vital to all those who assert that this road will bring massive quantities of traffic into the centre of Edinburgh. He also states:
The exits from the WRR at the city end were deliberately designed to redistribute traffic at the western end of the route. All the expert evidence, including the traffic experts called for the opposition at the Parliamentary Commission, accepted the WRR would not increase the volume of traffic on Lothian road.
Professor MacKay ends his letter by saying:
In all my experience of dealing with road schemes"—
he is an acknowledged road expert—
I have not seen a more clear-cut case for construction than that for the WRR. The expert evidence was agreed on the main facts and it is a matter of everyday experience that existing traffic has substantial adverse effects on Corstorphine and Gorgie—Dalry. If the WRR was constructed it would not adversely affect Alex Fletcher's constituents. It would, however, be an appreciable benefit to thousands of households along the existing radial routes.
Professor MacKay has made that point far more eloquently than I could have made it.
May I deal now with Opposition criticisms about certain aspects of the scheme. It is important to recognise that the stated sum of money does not cover just the construction of the road. It covers a substantial upgrading of the entire environment from Lothian road to the roundabout where it would join the outer city bypass. One of the happy byproducts of the project is that it would enable various measures to be undertaken on the existing radial routes which would make them much safer. That would be in the interests of pedestrians. These measures would reduce the volume of traffic, ease the flow of bus services and be of benefit to those who live close to the roads. The House ought to recognise that the project includes various traffic management and environmental improvement measures which can reasonably be associated with the scheme.
Those right hon. and hon. Members who have criticised the scheme tonight have said that the western relief road should not be built until the outer city bypass has been completed. That, however, flies in the face of the professional evidence which predicts, as has happened in virtually every other city in the United Kingdom, with reasonable certainty what the volume of traffic is expected to be.

Mr. Malone: My hon. Friend and I have great experience of what happened in Glasgow. There was a comprehensive scheme to route traffic through and round the city. That scheme went ahead, despite enormous local opposition. It has proved to be a success. It has relieved traffic congestion and has increased road safety. Although there may always be local opposition to schemes of that kind, does my hon. Friend agree that eventually they are seen to be exceptionally worthwhile?

Mr. Hirst: Yes, my hon. Friend is right. Furthermore, improved communications, as we have found in the west of Scotland, attract potential investors. The flow of traffic is speeded up. I freely acknowledge that Labour councillors in Glasgow had the foresight to recognise that their city would die if it did not have proper communications. It is very much to the credit of Tom Fulton and others in Glasgow that they had the wisdom and foresight to create in Glasgow a road system that enables one to get from one side of Glasgow to the other in a very short time.
I entertained recently a group of important American visitors to the west of Scotland. They were fulsome in their praise of Glasgow's excellent communications. After their visit to Edinburgh, they said that the city is beautiful but they wondered why the city fathers had not done anything about providing a road system that would enable travellers to get to Edinburgh in the same way as they are able to get to Glasgow. But relief is coming. There is to be an outer city bypass.
However, it would be fatal to imagine, based on the professional evidence that was laid before the commission, that the outer city bypass will divert traffic that needs to enter Edinburgh. The outer city bypass will enable traffic to flow quickly around the city of Edinburgh. It will not have to travel through the western sector or the city centre. However, that does not provide an answer to the volume of traffic that will still flow through the western sector after the outer city bypass has been constructed. The professional evidence suggested that Corstorphine would receive a measure of relief but that Gorgie-Dairy would not: the traffic volume there would be increased.
The Opposition say that no relief road should be constructed before the outer city bypass has been completed. However, the result would be that traffic would feed in through Gorgie-Dalry and would also go further round the ring road and start coming in via Bruntsfield. Although he is not in the Chamber, my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland would quickly find that his constituents were very concerned about traffic that was seeking to get to the centre of Edinburgh passing unnecessarily through his constituency. That is the established pattern of traffic movement after similar bypass developments have been completed. The professional experts were able to satisfy the commission that the traffic volumes were of such a nature that relief had to be provided in the western sector.
The critics also say that the road will pile traffic into the city centre. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Central was at pains to refer to the extra traffic that would be generated. I sat and listened for 52 days, expecting to hear where the extra traffic would come from. If traffic has to reach the centre of Edinburgh, it must be going there for a purpose. That applies to the traffic which passes along Queensferry road, or along the main roads through Corstorphine or Gorgie-Dalry. It may be using those roads for work, shopping, leisure or tourism. Can my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Central tell me where the extra traffic will come from? The professional witnesses for both the promoters and objectors were united in acknowledging that experience shows that a new road does not generate additional traffic. I hope that my hon. Friend can tell me where the vast amounts of extra traffic that will pile into the centre of Edinburgh will come from.

Mr. Fletcher: Experience shows that new roads attract additional traffic. Those who visit the city of Edinburgh snake their way through its streets. If a new road like this were to be created, people would use it. However, the people of Edinburgh would be unable to use it. There are no means of entry to or exit from it other than at the extreme ends of the road. I am not surprised that an hon. Member who represents a Glasgow constituency applauds the building of this new road. Those who reach the centre of the city of Edinburgh faster than anybody else will be those who come to it from the west, not those who live in Edinburgh.

Mr. Hirst: I can do no more than refer my hon. Friend to the evidence that was presented to the commission. It was tested under the most rigorous cross-examination and finally it convinced the commissioners. No traffic expert could be produced who was able to satisfy the commissioners that the construction of a new road would generate vast amounts of extra traffic coming to Edinburgh. It is the rat runs which cause such distress and environmental disturbance to my hon. Friend's constituents. It must be desirable that motor cars which currently use minor roads, where children are crossing to school and elderly people are going to the shops —necessary, non-local traffic —should be removed from the roads.
The commissioners were well aware of the regional council's intention to proceed with the construction of a multi-storey car park at the far end of the western relief road which would provide a place for people visiting Edinburgh for shopping, tourist or leisure purposes to park. That car park is an important element in what I perceive to be the whole scheme.
I could understand more readily my hon. Friend's fears if there were not to be such a car park. There is to be a car park, and I find it slightly strange, perverse and particularly saddening that the district council is not prepared to give it planning permission. However, I am confident that the justification for that will be established at the public inquiry into it.
Evidence was laid about the amount of green time, that vital element in any computer-controlled traffic management scheme, which allows the motor vehicles to leave the road and move into Lothian road, either northwards or southwards. The point about green time is that people simply will not use the road if they are not able to obtain egress at the far end. Voluminous evidence was laid on the green time issue, and I am happy to say that the majority of commissioners were satisfied on that point. I accept that it is a concept that may be difficult to understand. Indeed, one of my colleagues on the commission asked for the road expert to return to explain it to him again. That was important and necessary, because the fear was constantly expressed. It is sufficient for me to be able to reassure my hon. Friend that, in the light of the traffic expert's assurances and explanations, my fellow commissioner was prepared to agree to the scheme.
Edinburgh is singularly badly endowed with parking spaces. People will simply not use the motor car to travel if they cannot find a parking space. My hon. Friend will know that the issue of parking spaces is carefully considered in the structure plan and the modifications to it. He can be assured that the number of parking spaces will not rise so dramatically that it will encourage people to come into the centre of Edinburgh unnecessarily.
Frankly, it is a function of the black propaganda that has surrounded the proposal to make people feel that traffic will pour out of the western relief road into Lothian road and saturate the old arid new towns. Funnily enough, I share my hon. Friend's concern for the preservation of Edinburgh's historic buildings. My record on a civic trust involved in the preservation of old buildings testifies to my concern to protect our architectural heritage. But architectural heritage is not something that one cocoons in cotton wool. It is nothing if it cannot live with the contemporary world, providing that there are adequate safeguards to proect it, and there are adequate safeguards


to protect both the new and old towns of Edinburgh. I for one, having listened to all the black propaganda, am not minded to swallow it.
Finally, let me deal with the point made by the critics that the parliamentary inquiry was an inappropriate method of considering the scheme. The hon. Member for Springburn was at pains to point out that there was no precedent for a road scheme that involved a railway diversion. That matter occupied the commissioners' attention for the major part of one afternoon. I am surprised that he has overlooked the precedent of the Ross and Cromarty legislation under which a road was built which necessitated the diversion of a railway. Parliament then found it convenient to take the road construction scheme and the railway diversion in one measure. It was subject to the same investigative processes as the western relief road in Edinburgh by the parliamentary commission. I was at pains to ask the promoters' counsel to describe that precedent so that it was firmly on the record that there was a precedent which the commissioners could properly follow.
As the project aroused many fears and suspicions in Edinburgh, notwithstanding the extensive consultation embarked on by Lothian regional council in order to explain the process and the project to people and to allay their fears or answer them, and, indeed, at a formative stage in the project to take on board the worries that were being expressed, the regional council found itself in a position where the district council had given outline planning permission and there would have been no public inquiry because the Secretary of State was not prepared to call the matter in.
In view of all that, I cannot accept that it was inappropriate to have a parliamentary commission at which all the merits of the scheme were discussed at one time. There would have been a parliamentary commission for diverting the railway. There could certainly have been other inquiries about the compulsory purchase or the planning for the road. In fact, the district council was prepared to give planning permission and the Secretary of State was not prepared to call it in.
In those circumstances —I am sure the point will not be lost on the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East —the people would have had no opportunity to have had the merits of the scheme examined and tested under cross-examination. The fact that the commission lasted as long as it did is a testimony to the ability of the objectors to come before the commission to argue their case and to be heard. In the latter stages of the commission I asked objectors whether they felt that they had received a proper and fair hearing for the simple reason that, having gone to all the elaborate arrangements to provide a forum for examining the merits of the scheme, I did not want anyone to go away and say that the commissioners did not give them every opportunity to be heard and to have their point of view properly expressed.
As someone who has visited a number of cities, I believe that Edinburgh has a serious problem with its communications, but that problem has been recognised and it must surely be a tribute to the foresight of past Secretaries of State for Scotland that they have protected a route that would provide reasonable access from the western sector to the west end of Edinburgh. Usually, to put forward a scheme such as this would entail substantial

demolition and distress, the dislocation of small businesses, environmental pollution and many other things during the construction period. Amazingly, the scheme entails the destruction of one derelict bungalow and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West has said, the occupant of that house has already been rehoused.
I believe that the project is a major advance. It will confer on a wide area in the western and south-western section of Edinburgh substantial environmental benefits. Members of the golf course will have it substantially upgraded, and the derelict land beside the railway line between Glasgow and Edinburgh, which is currently a casual recreation area, will have facilities for children and young people that it does not have at the moment. The other people who will be displaced have adequate alternative arrangements.
I am certain that in years to come people in Edinburgh will welcome the road, and I am equally certain that they will ask what all the hoo-ha was about and say how much they value and are grateful for such a road. The trouble with change is that some people will welcome it and some will instinctively fear it. Those who fear it —there are many people who do so for perfectly honest reasons —will fall prey to those who, for one reason or another, are prepared to exaggerate the fears and excite suspicion about the scheme. In the course of 52 days of the commission, I heard a lobby articulate fears and complaints that were found not to have substance. The lobby was a curious coalition of people whose political philosophy made them antagonistic to car ownership and, therefore, the construction of roads, and conservationists who felt that the new town of Edinburgh, which is some distance from the western relief road, should be cocooned and preserved, and not made available to other people.
I believe that this is a worthwhile project. Having listened to the merits of the scheme being exhaustively examined during the commission's inquiry, I have no hesitation in recommending it to the House, and I hope that it will receive the vote of confidence that it deserves.

Mr. Gavin Strang: I have listened with interest to the remarks of the hon. Member for Strathkelvin and Bearsden (Mr. Hirst). I do not accept that the parliamentary commission was the appropriate way to handle the matter. It is essentially a planning issue, and in my opinion there should have been a full blown public inquiry to deal with the planning aspects of the road.
I cannot accept the strange argument of the hon. Member for Strathkelvin and Bearsden that all the opposition is based on fear of the unknown and that somehow it is a gut opposition to change regardless of the nature of the measure. One only has to look at what is currently happening in Edinburgh, as the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Fletcher) reminded us. We are in the middle of the construction of the Edinburgh outer city bypass. That road has not evoked enormous opposition. Therefore, it is not a matter of opposition to change for the sake of change. There is massive opposition to the road. One cannot run away from that. The hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central is opposing it in response to the views of his constituents. He made that clear.

Mr. Hirst: I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving way. As I had ample time to speak, I do not intend to interrupt him again. As a democrat, he must respect the


fact that the true opinions of people can be obtained when the democratic process is exercised. Does he not find it significant that in a by-election in Edinburgh, in the seat formerly held by Ian Cramond —an area that is substantially affected by the western relief road —the one candidate whose political philosphy makes him opposed to the road raised 7 per cent. of the votes? Is it not a reasonable corollary to say that if that was the issue, 93 per cent. of the people supported the road?

Mr. Strang: The hon. Gentleman should study the history of the voting pattern of that area and look at some of the other issues in the election.
I was not going to be drawn on this issue, but there is a widespread view in Edinburgh that one of the factors that led Labour to take control of that council, for the first time ever, was opposition to the road. I do not wish to make too much of that because there is no way of knowing what particular issues determine how people vote in an election. I say to the hon. Member for Strathkelvin and Bearsden that it will not wash to pretend that there is not substantial opposition to the road. There is opposition to the whole protracted process. Can anyone recall another road that has been built in Scotland in the past 20 years that has evoked so much public opposition, so much time of distinguished professional people and so much controversy? The nature of tonight's debate is, in itself, a reflection of just how controversial the road is. One has to face up to the fact that hundreds of roads are being built all the time throughout the country, and very few have evoked the controversy that this one has.
This is not a party issue. Indeed, hon. Members on both sides of the House are opposing the road. Although I am the only Labour Member representing the Lothian region who is speaking in the debate, all my hon. Friends who represent Lothian constituencies are opposed to the road. Both my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Brown) and my hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) would have liked to participate in the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Leith has an important interest in the issue, and his constituents oppose the road. He is also concerned about the future of the centre of Edinburgh. My hon. Friend the Member for Livingston has a particular knowledge of the area because he represented the constituency there. It is interesting that the previous Labour Member and the sitting Conservative Member in the central area of Edinburgh are united in their opposition to the road.
The starting point for the debate is that Edinburgh is a beautiful city. It is one of the most beautiful capitals in Europe. It could have been destroyed if we had allowed some of the roads to be built that were advocated by various groups in the past. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Springburn (Mr. Martin) made that point effectively. It is not for me to comment on Glasgow. It is a much bigger industrial city and the need for roads is different.
We are talking about the central area of Edinburgh. We know that some housing schemes on the outskirts need improvement and investment, but the centre of Edinburgh is beautiful. Many people can walk to work and to the shops. We should cherish and protect the nature of the area. Among other things, that means seeking to allow car owners and other people to come into the centre, but we should minimise pollution, congestion and the amount of unnecessary traffic coming into the centre.
I remember a great controversy in Edinburgh about an inner motorway. It is great that that motorway was never built. I remember all the arguments and the advocates of the motorway, many of them Labour and some Conservative councillors, who wanted to build a major inner circular motorway system in Edinburgh. Thank goodness we defeated that. That was at a time when the idea of building more roads was seen as progress per se. We have moved a long way forward, just as we have moved beyond the idea of knocking down all the houses in the central area. We now realise that the best thing to do is to try to retain the housing stock if we can get another 20 or 30 years out of it.
We have also learnt that the last thing that we want to do is to allow the motor car to dominate our lives. I am all for people owning motor cars. I want more people to own them, but it does not mean that we should allow them to rule our lives or that we should build roads in the centre of beautiful cities such as Edinburgh just to cater for the needs of some people who want to bring their cars into the centre.
There is a powerful case to be made about protecting the beauty of Edinburgh's central area and reducing the traffic damage there, not building a major road that comes right into the centre. That cannot be disputed. It comes into Lothian road only a few yards from the west end.
The hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central eloquently talked about the environmental damage. There is real opposition to the road in the area where it will be built. The hon. Member for Strathkelvin and Bearsden knows where many of the local objectors come from. Those people know what they want. They are opposed to the road because it will mean environmental damage and loss of open space. Open spaces are precious in Edinburgh and London —they make them beautiful cities. The huge parks and open spaces are some of the great strengths of Edinburgh. We want more open space in my constituency.

Mr. Malone: I do not like to participate too much in a debate that has little to do with my constituency. However, I have considered the evidence with some care, and I believe that the road. will destroy precious little of the open space referred to by the hon. Gentleman. He is talking nonsense when he says that the road will destroy the open space in Edinburgh.

Mr. Strang: The hon. Gentleman should consider both sides of the argument, the evidence that has been given to the inquiry and some of the arguments put forward by the Edinburgh district council. Anyone who tries to persuade me that everyone wants the road is obviously unaware of the nature of this debate.

Mr. Hirst: I am sorry that it is necessary for me to intervene. I should be grateful if the hon. Gentleman would tell me precisely what open space and parkland w ill be destroyed. I referred earlier to the protected route, much of which comprises derelict land. I also said that other pieces of land were being made available in compensation. Will the hon. Gentleman tell the House which areas of green parkland will be lost?

Mr. Strang: I will not be drawn into arguments about the relocation of the railway and the changes to the golf course. I make the simple point that if a major new road is constructed, it will take up land.

Mr. Hirst: Derelict land.

Mr. Strang: The road will last for 100 years. The land will not stay derelict for 100 years. It is no argument to say that the land is derelict.
Many years ago the Lothian region Labour party had a great debate about a road pattern for Edinburgh. Many people wished to build roads here and there, but the overwhelming consensus was for an outer Edinburgh city bypass. We have waited generations for that bypass. It is now going ahead and it will be an important road.
I do not dispute that the bulk of the traffic approaching Edinburgh wants to enter the city. The bypass will help to secure industrial development in my constituency. The only other road to which that Labour party agreed was one about which I did not feel as strongly as some of my colleagues. I accept that, on balance, it was right. It is a matter of whether the investment can be justified. That road is very different from the proposed road. It basically serves industrial traffic to Leith docks, to the freightliner depot, and takes the heavy traffic away from Portobello.
The proposed relief road is not a bypass in the usual sense. It is incredible that Professor MacKay seriously argued that he had never before come across a road that would bring so much benefit. That is an insult to our intelligence. Proper bypasses, in the usual sense, are the only roads that bring benefit. Real benefit is gained where roads bypass small towns and villages and relieve them of heavy traffic congestion. It is nonsense to compare the western relief road with those bypasses.

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: What parts of green land will be used for the road? Is the hon. Gentleman aware that it is estimated that the Al from Musselburgh will have its traffic reduced from 25,000 vehicles to 11,000 vehicles a day when the relief road is opened? That will bring very great benefits. Is the hon. Gentleman further aware that the traffic using that road will be going to the centre of the city?

Mr. Strang: I have already discussed that point and I can see no benefit in going over it again.
My case is based not on west Edinburgh alone, but on the city of Edinburgh as a whole. I am opposed to the road for a number of reasons. Surely the prudent course would have been to have waited until the complete outer city bypass was completed so that its effect on the Edinburgh area could be evaluated. It is not good enough to claim that we can predict that effect. That outer city bypass will be an important distributor of traffic. Hon. Members must consider the issue from a more sensible base.
Let us take the volume of traffic going into central Edinburgh. The building of another road merely distributes some of the congestion from the other routes going into the centre. Of course, I accept that that road will have an effect on the traffic going through Corstorphine. However, there is a certain volume of traffic going into Edinburgh in the rush hour, and there are already three or four routes that it can take. All that the building of the proposed road will do is provide an additional route. For example, traffic coming from the airport to east or central Edinburgh can use three or four different routes in an attempt to avoid being delayed by traffic congestion. The building of an additional road will merely redistribute traffic between existing roads and the new road. The new road cannot be justified in terms of its impact on central Edinburgh, and it certainly cannot be justified in terms of cost.

Mr. Home Robertson: Is it not nonsense for the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton) to compare the so-called western relief road with the Tranent-Musselburgh bypass, with which my hon. Friend and I are familiar? That bypass is part of the outer city bypass and takes traffic out of Edinburgh, whereas the western relief road will actually bring traffic into Edinburgh.

Mr. Strang: I agree with my hon. Friend. Indeed, that is such a basic point that I cannot understand why we have to argue it. I accept that there may be an argument for relieving the traffic congestion in Corstorphine, but there is no way in which the proposed road can be compared with a road that bypasses a whole community, such as the Tranent or Musselburgh bypasses.
We will have to wait to evaluate the effects of the outer city bypass in reducing the flow of traffic to Edinburgh. It depends on the extent to which some traffic chooses to go down Ferry road, although we hope that that will not happen. The vast bulk of the traffic, whether from Musselburgh or the west, will want to go into Edinburgh.
It has been argued that the western relief road will reduce accidents. That is a very strange argument. The same number of cars will be going into the city, so there will still be the same risk of accidents on those roads. I do not know how anyone can try to quantify the effect of that road on the number of accidents in that part of Edinburgh.
Another argument has been the possibility of job creation. If ever there was a pathetic argument, it must be that we should build a road simply for the sake of creating jobs. I am in favour of a massive expansion of investment in our infrastructure. I want a complete reversal of the Government's massive cuts in the public sector and in investment in housing, because that would benefit the construction industry. I should like to see the speeding up of the outer city bypass.
As to the argument that building the road can be justified on the ground that it will create jobs, to take it to its most absurd, one might as well argue that we should demolish Edinburgh castle and build flats there because it will create jobs. One cannot make a case for the road on the basis of jobs. We want jobs and we want more investment, but this is a planning issue and we have to consider the effect of the road on the communities, on Edinburgh and on the people who use the centre of Edinburgh.
With regard to the cost of the road, it is not enough to say that the arguments are evenly balanced. If they are evenly balanced those proposing the road have to make a case for the investment of £37 million. At this time, that is a colossal investment. It is an infrastructure which will bring no significant benefit. It will not benefit industry. Is somebody suggesting that it will attract more manufacturing industry to Edinburgh? Of course not. Is somebody suggesting that there are no other infrastructure investments to be made which would have a greater effect on economic growth? It is ridiculous to suggest that this is a particularly desirable infrastructure investment in terms of encouraging industrial expansion and promoting industrial efficiency. I do not think that any of the letters which we have received have sought to argue such a case.
Our position in the Labour party is that this money should be used for other purposes. We can think of a whole range of more desirable projects which would benefit from such investment. We support public transport, and I was


grateful to note the remarks made from the Conservative Benches about the public transport system. It was the Lothian regional council, then controlled by Labour, which brought about the major improvement in our public transport system. If we take control of the regional council again in May, we want to be in a position to put more money into public transport and to improve the public transport system in Edinburgh.
Why is Lothian regional council proceeding with such haste that it has even invited tenders and is going further down the road on the basis of a decision that it took last week in advance of Parliament's decision? It is because there is such a narrow base of support for the road. All shades of opinion in Edinburgh are against the road, but this narrow group on Lothian regional council is determined to force it through. Any objective planning official in Edinburgh would say that at this time at the very least we should wait to see the outcome of the elections to Lothian regional council. Maybe the Conservatives will take control and, if they do, fair enough. It is a scandal that they have invited tenders and are forcing it through to make sure that, if Labour later controls the region, it will have difficulty in stopping the road without incurring financial penalties.
The project is irresponsible on the most objective grounds, and I remind the House of the widespread nature of the opposition to the road. Is somebody telling me that the Cockburn Association does not have a splendid record in the defence of Edinburgh's beauty? It has made a tremendous contribution over the years to protecting the quality of life in central Edinburgh. Is somebody telling me that the National Trust for Scotland is an organisation whose views should not be given great weight and consideration? It will not wash to try to pretend that this is a small group of people who do not know what is good for them, people who are opposed to motor cars—

Mr. Robert Key: rose—

Mr. Strang: I shall not give way because I am winding up.
It is nonsense to suggest such things. These people are not fuddy-duddy conservationists. This road is being foisted on Edinburgh by a small group which happens to be in a dominating position on the council. The support tends to come from people outside the city rather than in the city. Opposition to the road is all-party, comes from all walks of life and in particular from the people who want to protect and develop the centre of Edinburgh as one of the most beautiful capitals of Europe.

Question put, That the Bill be now read a Second time:—

The House divided: Ayes 138, Noes 82.

Division No. 17]
[9.25 pm


AYES


Arnold, Tom
Boyson, Dr Rhodes


Ashby, David
Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard


Ashdown, Paddy
Brandon-Bravo, Martin


Aspinwall, Jack
Bright, Graham


Batiste, Spencer
Browne, John


Beaumont-Dark, Anthony
Bruinvels, Peter


Bellingham, Henry
Bryan, Sir Paul


Best, Keith
Buchanan-Smith, Rt Hon A.


Bevan, David Gilroy
Carlile, Alexander (Montg'y)


Biggs-Davison, Sir John
Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)


Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter
Chapman, Sydney


Boscawen, Hon Robert
Churchill, W. S.


Bottomley, Mrs Virginia
Clegg, Sir Walter





Coombs, Simon
Mates, Michael


Cope, John
Maude, Hon Francis


Couchman, James
Mawhinney, Dr Brian


Currie, Mrs Edwina
Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin


Dover, Den
Mayhew, Sir Patrick


Dunn, Robert
Mills, lain (Meriden)


Durant, Tony
Monro, Sir Hector


Eyre, Sir Reginald
Morrison, Hon C. (Devizes)


Fairbairn, Nicholas
Moynihan, Hon C.


Farr, Sir John
Neale, Gerrard


Favell, Anthony
Nicholls, Patrick


Fenner, Mrs Peggy
Oppenheim, Phillip


Fookes, Miss Janet
Parris, Matthew


Fox, Marcus
Pawsey, James


Freeman, Roger
Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth


Galley, Roy
Penhaligon, David


Garel-Jones, Tristan
Powell, William (Corby)


Griffiths, Peter (Portsm'th N)
Powley, John


Ground, Patrick
Pym, Rt Hon Francis


Grylls, Michael
Raffan, Keith


Hanley, Jeremy
Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon


Haselhurst, Alan
Ridsdale, Sir Julian


Hawkins, C. (High Peak)
Rifkind, Malcolm


Hayes, J.
Roe, Mrs Marion


Heathcoat-Amory, David
Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)


Heddle, John
Sackville, Hon Thomas


Henderson, Barry
Sainsbury, Hon Timothy


Hicks, Robert
Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)


Holt, Richard
Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')


Howarth, Alan (Stratf'd-on-A)
Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)


Howells, Geraint
Silvester, Fred


Hubbard-Miles, Peter
Sims, Roger


Jackson, Robert
Skeet, T. H. H.


Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick
Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)


Jessel, Toby
Soames, Hon Nicholas


Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)
Spence, John


Jones, Robert (Herts W)
Stern, Michael


Jopling, Rt Hon Michael
Stewart, Andrew (Sherwood)


Kennedy, Charles
Stewart, Ian (Hertf'dshire N)


Key, Robert
Stradling Thomas, Sir John


King, Roger (B'ham N'field)
Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)


Kirkwood, Archy
Thurnham, Peter


Knox, David
Vaughan, Sir Gerard


Lang, Ian
Viggers, Peter


Lawrence, Ivan
Walker, Rt Hon P. (Wcester)


Lightbown, David
Wallace, James


Livsey, Richard
Waller, Gary


Lloyd, Peter, (Fareham)
Ward, John


Lord, Michael
Watson, John


McCurley, Mrs Anna
Wells, Sir John (Maidstone)


MacKay, Andrew (Berkshire)
Wiggin, Jerry


MacKay, John (Argyll &amp; Bute)
Winterton, Mrs Ann


Maclean, David John
Winterton, Nicholas


McNair-Wilson, M. (N'bury)
Younger, Rt Hon George


McQuarrie, Albert



Madel, David
Tellers for the Ayes:


Malins, Humfrey
Lord James Douglas-Hamilton


Malone, Gerald
and Mr. Michael Hirst.




NOES


Bagier, Gordon A. T.
Cook, Robin F. (Livingston)


Banks, Tony (Newham NW)
Corbyn, Jeremy


Barnett, Guy
Davies, Ronald (Caerphilly)


Beckett, Mrs Margaret
Davis, Terry (B'ham, H'ge H'l)


Bell, Stuart
Deakins, Eric


Benn, Rt Hon Tony
Dewar, Donald


Bennett, A. (Dent'n &amp; Red'sh)
Douglas, Dick


Bermingham, Gerald
Dunwoody, Hon Mrs G.


Boyes, Roland
Eastham, Ken


Bray, Dr Jeremy
Ewing, Harry


Brown, Gordon (D'f'mline E)
Fatchett, Derek


Brown, M. (Brigg &amp; Cl'thpes)
Fisher, Mark


Brown, Ron (E'burgh, Leith)
Fletcher, Alexander


Buchan, Norman
Foot, Rt Hon Michael


Callaghan, Jim (Heyw'd &amp; M)
Foster, Derek


Campbell-Savours, Dale
Foulkes, George


Carter-Jones, Lewis
Godman, Dr Norman


Clarke, Thomas
Golding, John


Clwyd, Mrs Ann
Hamilton, James (M'well N)


Cocks, Rt Hon M. (Bristol S.)
Haynes, Frank






Hogg, N. (C'nauld &amp; Kilsyth)
Nellist, David


Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)
Neubert, Michael


Janner, Hon Greville
Park, George


John, Brynmor
Pavitt, Laurie


Jones, Barry (Alyn &amp; Deeside)
Pike, Peter


Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald
Radice, Giles


Lamond, James
Redmond, M.


Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)
Richardson, Ms Jo


Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)
Robertson, George


McCartney, Hugh
Ross, Ernest (Dundee W)


McDonald, Dr Oonagh
Rowlands, Ted


McKay, Allen (Penistone)
Skinner, Dennis


McKelvey, William
Soley, Clive


McNamara, Kevin
Spearing, Nigel


McTaggart, Robert
Stott, Roger


McWilliam, John
Strang, Gavin


Madden, Max
Tinn, James


Marek, Dr John
Warden, Gareth (Gower)


Martin, Michael
Young, David (Bolton SE)


Maxton, John



Maynard, Miss Joan
Tellers for the Noes:


Michie, William
Mr. John Home Robertson and


Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)
Mr. Richard Page.

Question accordingly agreed to.

Bill read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Joint Committee of both Houses.—[Mr. Fletcher.]

Northern Ireland (Loans) Bill

Considered in Committee.

[SIR PAUL DEAN in the Chair]

Clause 1

INCREASE OF LIMIT

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell: The clause as drafted is, indeed, the Bill. I take it that observations which relate to the Bill are pertinent to the Question which you have proposed to the Committee, Sir Paul.
Any hon. Members who are accidentally remaining in the Chamber, washed up after the Division of a few moments ago like flotsam upon the beach, might be surprised to learn that these proceedings, if they pause for a moment to listen to them, are of no practical effect to the House. If the Bill had not been introduced, or if the Bill failed to pass through the House, not one penny less, not one penny more, whether for capital or current purposes, would be expended in Northern Ireland. Such an atrocious misuse of the time of the House might well excite their curiousity. Lest they should go away unsatisfied, I might explain, perhaps briefly on the Question that you have proposed, Sir Paul, how it comes about. It is not without its historical interest and its current importance.
Once upon a time —now quite a long time ago —there was a Parliament and a Government in Northern Ireland established under the Government of Ireland Act 1920. That home rule Government of Northern Ireland, thus established, was fitted up with all the appurtenances and furniture of a Parliament and Government to which we are accustomed, including the pieces of furniture relative to the conduct and control of financial affairs.
Accordingly, there was a Consolidated Fund for Northern Ireland and a loans fund for Northern Ireland. The purpose of the loans fund for Northern Ireland was analogous to that of the public works loans fund in Great Britain, which subsequently became the national loans fund, namely, to borrow money on public credit and re-lend it to certain bodies for purposes which would be self-financing in the sense that when the capital works in question were carried out they might be expected to yield revenue or a rent which would in due course go towards the satisfaction of the interest and the repayment of the capital which had been advanced out of the Consolidated Fund after it had been received from the Loans Fund.
Things went on in that way in Northern Ireland until in 1972 the constitution was suspended and in 1973 abolished. Since that time, responsibility for the Government of Northern Ireland and for the financing of the Government of Northern Ireland, and of all matters pertaining thereto, has fallen upon the House and is discharged through the financial mechanisms of the House. Therefore, it may be inquired why this venerable relic not only has been preserved by the Northern Ireland (Loans) Act 1975, renewed by an Order in Council in the meantime, but is to be warmed up again to a renewed lease of life by the Bill which is at present in Committee of the whole House.
Before I answer that question, perhaps I might draw attention to a curious consequence of its survival after the demise of the Government and Parliament established under the Government of Ireland Act. I have already explained to the Committee that the concept was that only capital purposes which were self-financing would be the recipients of onward loans from the loans fund, it being the general notion that a loans fund might be able to borrow at more advantageous rates of interest and conditions than those at which individual undertakings might borrow.
Of course, when everything was dealt with by Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom that distinction ceased to hold good. Consequently, the purposes to which the proceeds from the Northern Ireland loans fund are now devoted are those
of any expenditure which, in the opinion of the Secretary of State, is of a capital nature.
Those are the material words.
9.45 pm
The Minister of State has, as he did before Second Reading, refreshed his memory of the debate that took place on 28 November 1984. He will know that a question was asked then to which an answer is still outstanding, as answers usually are to unanswerable questions, namely, how the Secretary of State determines, for this purpose, expenditure which is of a capital nature.
In a sense, all Government expenditure is current expenditure. It is a transfer of resources from within the economy for current use. For different purposes we find it convenient, by way of analogy with non-Government expenditure, to treat certain matters as capital —such as housebuilding or the erection of factories, which would be capital expenditure if it were privately commenced.
There is no longer a distinction in Northern Ireland between enterprises which are, in the sense that I previously defined, self-financing, and other enterprises. The margin of expenditure in Northern Ireland is not deemed to be met out of taxation, which of necessity must be met by borrowing out of the public sector. That forms part of the public sector borrowing of the United Kingdom.
The consequence is that the notion of issues out of the fund going to expenditure which, in the opinion of the Secretary of State, is of a capital nature is sheer nonsense which has had to be maintained in order to justify the continued existence of the fund. The initial and practical purposes of the fund have no relationship whatsoever with the present financing of public expenditure in Northern Ireland.
The Minister has been candid about the reasons for preserving the antiquity which is the fund. Indeed, some of the Minister's predecessors were equally as candid when the corresponding question was put to them, usually at a much later hour of night than this. The Minister says that the fund is kept hanging around because one day, one never knows, there might once again be a devolved Government in Northern Ireland. It would then be splendid if, besides all the other legislation which would be necessary to bring that regime into existence, there was already a Consolidated Fund and a Loans Fund. That is an untenable explanation.
It would be a considerable legislative achievement if such a regime ever came about, and it is not likely to come about in the circumstances that I can at present envisage. To reinstate and re-elect a devolved Administration for

Northern Ireland would be a fairly large legislative undertaking, which I do not expect or hope to live to see. It would be such a large achievement that merely to insert in it the creation of a Consolidated Fund and a Loans Fund would be a negligible addition to the bulk of such an Act.
The Minister is trifling with the Committee when he says that such things are kept in existence because it would be highly convenient, in an extremely improbable contingency, not to have to put an additional clause or subsection of a clause into a hypothetical Bill.
The fund is maintained as a declaration of intent by the Government to keep up the pretence that they still look forward to a time when there can be an effective Government in Northern Ireland. That would be a Government, not on the lines of the Government of Ireland Act 1920, but on lines on which no Government could possibly carry on, namely, that the minority and majority in their Parliament have exactly the same political effect and bear exactly the same responsibility.
The House is being put to all this trouble to maintain erect a mere totem which no longer brings any satisfaction or cause for comfort to anyone in Northern Ireland and has no practical effect whatever. It is an affront to the intelligence of the House and to those who believe that the time of the House should be spent as rationally as possible.
My final observation relates to the Second Reading debate on 27 November, and I put it before the Committee as an illustration of the unwisdom of intervening in a debate to make critical remarks about other Members when one is ill acquainted with the subject at large. 11 had assumed that the hon. Member for Grantham (Mr. Hogg), who participated in the Second Reading debate, would have continued his interest to the Committee stage. I had also hoped that the hon. Member for Coventry, South-East (Mr. Nellist), who made such a distinguished contribution to that debate, might have been persuaded to continue in the Committee. However, that was not to be. The hon. Member for Grantham will therefore forgive my being obliged to refer in his absence to the intervention that he made on that occasion.
The Minister had referred, as I have, to the fact that there had been a national loans fund under the Northern Ireland Act 1920. The hon. Member for Grantham intervened as follows:
Does not the fact that a separate fund has existed since 1921 show conclusively that the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) is wholly wrong when he says that its purpose is to enable the Government to hive off the Province."—[Official Report, 27 November 1985; Vol. 87, c. 990.]
Having delivered himself of that, the hon. Member for Grantham sat down with the self-satisfaction that one can almost hear exuding from the words that I have just quoted. In fact, of course, it shows that the right hon. Member for South Down was wholly right. Anyone who takes the trouble to peruse the Government of Ireland Act 1920 will discover that that legislation was specially devised to further the creation of an all-Ireland state, providing for a Council of Ireland and a built-in mechanism whereby the two home rule Irelands —Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland —could coalesce without further action on the part of this House.
It was for that very reason that the Northern Ireland devolved Administration was set up. It was part of the operation which has been going on between the Government and Dublin in the past few months, a part of the process —as abortive as all subsequent parts have


proved to be —of hiving off Northern Ireland to a place to which its inhabitants have no intention of going. In his way, the hon. Member for Grantham did the House a service by reminding those who care to be reminded that the British state has been working away since the end of the first world war at the thankless and self-destructive task of attempting to disembarrass the United Kingdom of an integral part, namely, Northern Ireland.
We shall not contribute to that end —malevolent or otherwise, ill fated or otherwise —by wasting the time of the House with measures of this kind. I hope that I have not wasted the time of the Committee by pointing out to it that it is wasting its time.

Sir John Biggs Davison: The right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) spoke of wasting time. On Second Reading he described the Northern Ireland Loans Fund and the Northern Ireland Consolidated Fund as fictional and suggested that legislation in respect thereof was unnecessary. He reiterated that point today.
When my hon. Friend the Minister of State replied to the Second Reading debate he founded the need for this legislation on the wearisome assumption, if I may so describe it, of successive Governments that
Northern Ireland's special needs and problems can best be met by a devolved system of Government.
He kindly added:
I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Sir J. Biggs-Davison) does not agree".—[Official Report, 27 November 1985; Vol. 87, c. 990.]
The hon. Member for Epping Forest certainly does not agree. I wonder whether my hon. Friend the Minister, who is intelligent and down to earth, who understands Catholic and Protestant Ulster people, and who gives them his affection and service, agrees either.
My hon. Friend said that there had been a separate consolidated fund in Northern Ireland since 1921, and that it was established with a view to devolution. The right hon. Member for South Down referred to the history of that time, and the Government of Ireland Act 1920, but it was then that the fundamental mistake was made. There was some excuse for it because the new authority in southern Ireland was under the Crown and was part of the empire. Perhaps it was understandable that there should be a wish to establish a devolved system of government in the north, and to bring the north and the south together through parliamentary representatives sitting in a Council of Ireland, to which Northern Ireland appointed represen-tatives, but Dublin did not. It may have been excusable, but it was a fundamental mistake, from which Northern Ireland has suffered ever since. It denied the minority the protection of this Parliament.
In 1972 that subordinate Government and Parliament were abolished, and it seems to have been the purpose of every Government since then to restore Stormont. They have perversely and vainly pursued a form of devolved Government which, to satisfy them, must reconcile the insistence of the majority on majority rule with the

insistence of the minority on a devolved Government. That is despite the evident popularity in Northern Ireland of government from Westminster.

Mr. Stuart Bell: Will the hon. Gentleman be more precise in his definition of Stormont? It was self-government in Northern Ireland. The devolution that is now being sought is completely different. Stormont had its own Cabinet, Prime Minister and Upper Assembly, and was entirely set apart from this Chamber. In 60 years not one question was asked in this Chamber by a Northern Ireland Member. Does he accept that we are discussing not that sort of Stormont, but devolved Government?

The Second Deputy Chairman: Order. Discussions about how the clause came about are in order, but we cannot have a general debate.

Mr. John David Taylor: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Sir John Biggs-Davison: I am not sure if I may give way. Perhaps if I utter a few more words, I shall then be permitted to give way to the right hon. Gentleman.
I thought that I had pointed out that that was what was wrong. This Parliament did not concern itself with the problems of the minority of Northern Ireland. That is the tragedy, and that was the great mistake. However, I must not be drawn too far along that track.

Mr. Taylor: The hon. Gentleman made a tremendously important point, which is beginning to dawn on all the people of Northern Ireland. During the period to which he referred, we had majority rule in Northern Ireland, as the term is generally understood throughout the free nations in western Europe. From 1972 onwards we then had what was called direct rule. Since last week we now have minority rule, and the majority is ignored.

The Second Deputy Chairman: Order. We must not stray from the clause which we are discussing.

Sir John Biggs-Davison: The right hon. Member for Strangford (Mr. Taylor) has made an important point —that we are now reaching a position in which part of the United Kingdom is being governed without the consent of the governed. For that reason, I agree with the right hon. Member for South Down that it would do something to help in a very difficult situation if we were to do away with this method of legislating for and financing Northern Ireland.
As my hon. Friend the Minister of State said when he opened the Second Reading debate, it is a technical financial measure, but whether it be a question of borrowing from the National Loans Fund, which Northern Ireland repays with interest—

It being Ten o'clock, THE CHAIRMAN left the Chair to report Progress and ask leave to sit again.

Committee report Progress.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Ordered,
That, at this day's sitting the Northern Ireland (Loans) Bill may be proceeded with, though opposed, until any hour.—[Mr. Peter Lloyd.]

Northern Ireland (Loans) Bill

Again considered in Committee.

Question again proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Sir John Biggs-Davison: I was making the point that the borrowings are repaid with interest. People who are critical of the amount that is spent on Northern Ireland should note that. Whether we are debating this technical measure or any other aspect of Northern Ireland affairs, we debate under the shadow of resentment, menace and foreboding which is felt not just by Loyalist militants but by the most sober elements, not all Protestant, in Northern Ireland. The Republican terrorists have not been overcome by the sheer goodness of the Hillsborough agreement, and the paramilitaries, dubbed Loyalists, have not evaporated.
Northern Ireland, as I have said, is now not being governed with the consent of the people. Therefore, I submit that it might do a little to assuage the anguish and restrain the lurking forces of violence if the Government were to pluck up their courage, forgo this sort of separate legislation, close that precious separate statute book, and administer and finance Northern Ireland as though it was what the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland thought and said it was until he was told differently by the Taoiseach and the Prime Minister —acting, I suppose, in the spirit of the intergovernmental conference —namely, truly a part of the United Kingdom under this one Parliament.

Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson: Any piece of legislation which is described as a technical financial measure is one that usually does not attract my attention, but, because money has been lent in Northern Ireland over the past decade without much accountability to the House of Commons, I hope that I shall not stray out of order if I ask my hon. Friend the Minister of State if he could answer a few questions about the Bill and about clause 1, in which the principle of the Bill lies.
As I understand it, the Bill increases the ability of loans to be made by a further £700 million over the £1 billion which is currently available. I think my hon. Friend made it clear to the House on Second Reading that that would mean about £150 million a year extra available in loans. He also told us that the full rate of interest would be paid on those loans, but what I do not know is the rate of interest that is currently being levied on those loans, and over what period they are expected to be repaid.
I have sought some information about the current situation, but in the Library I can find only the annual report for 1981–84 of the Northern Ireland civil contingencies fund account and that lists loans and advances given by that body to a total of £329,335,641. However, there is a note at the bottom of the appendix which says:
These figures differ slightly from those on page 11 as certain receipts were not brought to account until 1981–85, an amount of £502,156 being in transit.
Even if that is the case, I find it difficult to discover why we are having to increase the loan limit if that figure is the sum total of loans and advances. If it is not, will the Minister say how much has currently been lent and why he is seeking this further ability to lend another £700 million?
How many of the loans listed in the appendix have been paid back by the various local authorities and statutory

bodies named? When are some of them due to be paid back? I again ask how much of the £1 billion originally provided for loans under the 1975 Act have been lent and when some of the money will be paid back? Does the new total imply that the Government are setting about a fresh programme of capital expenditure by the statutory bodies to which they intend to lend this money?
I notice that one of the beneficiaries of loans was the Northern Ireland Department of Finance and Personnel. It, in turn, up to 1982 made advances of capital to the Northern Ireland Development Agency. That agency ceased to exist in 1982. What happened to the money that was lent to it? Over £5 million is quoted. What body has taken over its responsibilities?
The Minister will be aware that my questions about the Northern Ireland Development Agency bring me to the subject of De Lorean and Learfan, not because I wish to debate those unhappy subjects but because money was lent by the Northern Ireland Development Agency to both organisations and all that money has been lost.
Did that money originally come from the loans fund? I think I see the Minister shaking his head in dissent, indicating that it was not. How can he be so categoric, for apparently the £5 million to which I referred was outstanding up to 1982? Presumably it was passed on to whichever statutory body took over from the Northern Ireland Development Agency.
I hope that the Minister will answer those questions and agree that they are pertinent to the debate.

Mr. Bell: I congratulate you, Sir Paul, on having permitted the debate to weave in and out of the complexities of the Hillsborough summit in relation to the Bill, and I am sure that hon. Members on both sides enjoyed the contributions of the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) and the hon. Members for Epping Forest (Sir J. Biggs-Davison) and for Newbury (Mr. McNair-Wilson).
I mean no disrespect to the hon. Member for Epping Forest when I say that he slipped in a Mickey Finn when he said that there was no longer government by the consent of the majority. I do not know how that can be tied into the Northern Ireland (Loans) Bill on clause stand part, but it is not the Opposition's view that that is the case. Arrangements of a limited nature have been made. They allow for consultation and consensus.

Sir John Biggs-Davison: I have made the point that since the Hillsborough agreement there has been an atmosphere and a feeling of resentment in Northern Ireland. It amounts to the withdrawal of willing consent to being governed as the people of Northern Ireland are being governed now. Will the hon. Gentleman, who disputes that, agree that there should be a referendum on the Hillsborough agreement?

The Second Deputy Chairman: Order. We must return to the clause.

Mr. Bell: I shall gladly return to the clause, but may I point out that I have not said that there is not a feeling of unease in Northern Ireland. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer) and I have said that there is a feeling of unease in Northern Ireland.

Mr. John David Taylor: The hon. Gentleman said that there is consultation. With whom is there consultation in Northern Ireland? There is certainly no consultation with the majority of the people in Northern Ireland.

The Second Deputy Chairman: Order. I hope that the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Mr. Bell) will resist the temptation to reply to that question. I know that he is anxious to discuss the clause that is in front of the Committee.

Mr. Bell: To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, I can resist everything except temptation. However, on this occasion I shall resist the temptation to involve the right hon. Member for Strangford (Mr. Taylor) who, on his own behalf and on behalf of his constituents, feels very strongly about these issues.
Clause 1 has been described as the operative clause. It amends the limit upon the amount of lending that the Secretary of State may make from the national loans fund to the Northern Ireland consolidated fund. The limit is contained in the Northern Ireland (Loans) Act 1975. The right hon. Member for South Down reminded us last week that he was in the Chamber when the 1975 Act was discussed. The Northern Ireland (Loans) Act 1975 was amended by the Northern Ireland (Increase of Limit) Order 1984. The clause relates to the total indebtedness of the Northern Ireland Consolidated Fund to the National Loans Fund. The Opposition understand the reasons for clause 1. It is the operative clause and we support it.

The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Dr. Boyson): I shall confine my remarks to clause 1. As the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) said, it contains the guts of the Bill. I do not disagree with the right hon. Gentleman about the history of this fund. It was created by the Government of Ireland Act 1920. In 1921 it became the consolidated fund. In 1950 there was another Act. After devolution in 1972 it was withdrawn from devolved control. However, it was kept in being not as a relic but like a suit that one has not worn for some time but which one keeps in the wardrobe in case it should be needed. I think that the right hon. Gentleman has been influenced by Professor Hayek: that it is accident to which one reacts.
One cannot say that something will never happen. I am surprised that the right hon. Gentleman, for whose speeches and writings I have great respect, believes that one can say that something will never happen. I do not believe this. The hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Mr. Bell) made a similar point. His party supports devolution if it can be applied in Northern Ireland. The Government's policy is similarly to support devolution. I know that the right hon. Members for South Down and for Strangford (Mr. Taylor)—

Mr. John David Taylor: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Dr. Boyson: No, not until I have finished this sentence.

Mr. Taylor: Will the hon. Gentleman give way now?

Dr. Boyson: No, the right hon. Gentleman will have to wait for the full stop. I do not expect the right hon. Gentleman to run away, but we in England do not run away, either. We have respect for Northern Ireland Members and we in England do not run away. I shall continue until I reach my full stop.

Mr. Taylor: rose—

Dr. Boyson: Let me finish my sentence and then I shall give way. The right hon. Gentleman must contain himself. We do not want any heart attacks in the Chamber. We can all get excited from time to time.
I was saying that I do not believe that any right hon. or hon. Member can say that a thing will never happen. I shall give way willingly now.

Mr. Taylor: As the Minister has mentioned devolution, will he tell the people of Northern Ireland honestly, because it is in Northern Ireland and nowhere else that the final decision will be taken, what powers will remain outside the devolved system of government and within the Anglo-Irish conference if we agree to devolution?

The Second Deputy Chairman: Order. I hope that in answering that point, the Minister will be able to relate it to clause 1.

Dr. Boyson: I shall follow your guidance, Sir Paul, despite my desire to follow the hon. Gentleman's line.

Mr. Taylor: Running away.

Dr. Boyson: I follow the guidance of the Chair. That is what democracy is about when all is said and done. I have great respect for Sir Paul and the way in which he guides in this Committee.

Mr. Taylor: Very weak.

Dr. Boyson: The right hon. Gentleman can throw all kinds of adjectives across the Chamber, but they will not help. Let us return to the point.

Mr. Taylor: Answer the question.

Dr. Boyson: If the right hon. Gentleman listens, he might learn something. I have listened to other speeches too—

Mr. Taylor: Answer the question.

Dr. Boyson: I am not answering any more questions from the right hon. Gentleman. The right hon. Gentleman has no intention of listening so why should I tell him?
The consolidated fund does not exist for something that may never happen. It may never happen, but it is possible that it will. It exists for the return of devolution in Northern Ireland and that is all that the Bill is about. I rest the case for clause 1 there.
I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Sir J. Biggs-Davison) feels strongly about the issue. The disagreement is again on the question of devolution. My hon. Friend prefers no devolution but integration in the United Kingdom which is not the policy of the two major parties in the House, nor indeed of other parties in the House.
My hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Mr. McNair-Wilson) raised points of detail which I cannot answer now but I shall write to him. The Bill has been brought forward because the £1,000 million which was allowed under the Northern Ireland (Loans) Act 1975 will run out in the middle of next year. We could not continue transferring money from the Treasury here to Northern Ireland without the Bill. This transfer is not the only income going into the consolidated fund. Savings certificates, surplus cash balances of other Departments and money from the European Investment bank have also gone into it.

Mr. Taylor: rose—

Dr. Boyson: I shall not give way. I am answering the questions of my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury. I have no intention of giving way.

Mr. Taylor: The hon. Gentleman is afraid.

Dr. Boyson: I do not spend my life saying that people are afraid. I am answering the questions of my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury and I shall continue to do so. He has asked serious questions without repeating himself.

Mr. Taylor: rose—

The Second Deputy Chairman: Order. May I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that we are in Committee and it might be much easier if he were to listen to the Minister and then try to catch my eye?

Dr. Boyson: I shall continue trying to answer the questions asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury. He asked serious questions instead of speaking to the wind.
At present, £1,502 million has gone out of the consolidated fund. Some of that comes from other funds on the technical side and some from what is borrowed and transferred. I must put the mind of my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury at rest. To my knowledge, none of the Lear Fan money or the De Lorean money came from that. It came directly out of the Northern Ireland block from the Department of Economic Development. None of that money ran away. I will write to my hon. Friend about the details that he raised.
I know that many right hon. and hon. Members would like to extend the debate so that we have the Anglo-Irish debate all over again, but this is a one-clause Bill and I am speaking to clause 1 stand part.

Mr. John David Taylor: The Minister has given a despicable performance. It is a performance that will underline the withdrawal of consent within the majority community of Northern Ireland from the present imposed Dublin-London system of government in Belfast and throughout Northern Ireland. He is an absolute disgrace to the people in Northern Ireland. In 1986, the people of Northern Ireland will so express their opinion through the democratic process.
The Minister referred to two systems that reflect democracy throughout the United Kingdom. One is democracy itself and the second is the financial implications. In a rather flimsy manner, he referred to the transfer of finances from the central Exchequer to the Stormont Exchequer in Northern Ireland.
I shall deal with the first aspect —democracy. I speak as one who has been a Member of Parliament for some 20 years. Democracy depends upon the people, not upon Parliament or the Government. At the end of the day, it depends upon the man in the street. Democracy also depends upon consultation. In what respect in recent months have the people of Northern Ireland had consultation? The Whip tonight, the hon. Member for Warwickshire, North (Mr. Maude), who voted against the people of Northern Ireland, even with a small majority, knows that there has been no consultation in Northern Ireland.
The second pillar of democracy is consent. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, so-called of Great Britain and Northern Ireland —so she says —states that we shall not seek the consent of the people of Northern Ireland. The

two great pillars of democracy, consultation and consent, have been thrown to the side. Since it was the Minister who raised the question of the Anglo-Irish agreement, I say that there is one remaining pillar of democracy —the voice of the people. The Government will ignore the voice of the people in Northern Ireland in 1986 at their great risk. If the majority of people in Northern Ireland go to the poll and express their view of what the Government have done without consultation or consent, saying, "So what", the Government will be answerable for what takes place in Northern Ireland thereafter.
The second issue raised in the debate is transfers from one Exchequer to another. It has been a dishonest debate, showing that the United Kingdom is not governed under a system of economics where all people within the United Kingdom are treated equally.
In the United Kingdom there are two Exchequers —not three or four. There is the Exchequer at Stormont and the Exchequer here in the capital of the United Kingdom. Therefore, it is easy for Ministers to refer to the transfers from London to Stormont. We have not heard what the transfers are from here to Scotland, Wales or the south-west of England. The Government run away from that. They pillory the people of Northern Ireland. They speak in terms of the transfers from London to Northern Ireland, but there are transfers from London to many other regions in the United Kingdom. It is dishonourable for the Minister to say that in some way Northern Ireland is exceptional and depends on support from the rest of the United Kingdom.
Many of the regions depend upon support from the central Exchequer. All that we in Northern Ireland ask is that the Government —last week they failed to recognise the fact —recognise that we in Northern Ireland, as with England, Scotland and Wales, are part of the United Kingdom, and like all other citizens we wish to carry the same burdens and accept the same privileges. When the Government face up to that, we shall support them, but at the moment we are on the road to confrontation with them.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause I ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Bill reported, without amendment.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Bill be now read the Third time.—[Mr. Maude.]

Mr. Bell: I am glad to see the House move so rapidly from Second Reading, to Committee, to Third Reading. That comes from the heart, because I sat through 67 sittings of the Police and Criminal Evidence Bill in Committee and, in the same year, 195 hours of the Finance Bill, so I am encouraged to now note that the House can make rapid progress when it wishes.
As we have seen, the Bill is essentially technical arid provides merely a piece of financial machinery. It does not itself authorise any expenditure, nor does it affect policies behind the programmes that it will help to finance. It merely ensures that when certain programmes of capital expenditure have been approved by the normal procedures, the money for them can be made available. All expenditure on transferred matters in Northern Ireland is financed out of the Northern Ireland consolidated fund. It obtains most of its funds from revenues. The Northern Ireland consolidated fund also obtains smaller sums by


borrowing from various sources, of which the national loans fund is by far the most important. The Bill is concerned solely with loans to the Northern Ireland Consolidated Fund from the national loans fund.
On Second Reading there were interesting interventions by my hon. Friends the Members for Coventry, South-East (Mr. Nellist) and for Liverpool, Riverside (Mr. Parry). They were concerned that the Northern Ireland (Loans) Bill touches upon housing and, of course, the Divis flats were mentioned. Although I do not wish to go beyond the scope of Third Reading, reports have reached me that Mr. Frank Gillem, chairman of the Divis flats residents association, his wife Lillian, the secretary of the association Mr. Francis McCann, and his partner Jeanette Lackey were arrested by the Royal Ulster Constabulary, under section 12 powers, in a raid on the flats at 6 o'clock this morning.
The Bill relates to housing, and housing relates to the Divis flats, which in turn raises a question about social conditions. I do not wish to labour that point, but simply to place it on record for the benefit of the House.
We have followed these proceedings with great care. They are identical to the proceedings on 28 November 1975, when that Northern Ireland (Loans) Bill was read a Second and Third time. The proceedings have been enlivened —if that is the right word —by the intervention of the Anglo-Irish Agreement and by hon. Members occasionally wandering off into the broader issues of that agreement rather than sticking to the narrow issue of the Bill.
I welcome that widening of the debate, because hon. Members representing constituencies in Northern Ireland take their duties seriously. They have expressed their view to the Government and to the Opposition across the Floor of the House. No doubt in future we will hear more about the Anglo-Irish Agreement than we will about the Bill.

Dr. Boyson: Obviously, I support the Third Reading of the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Mr. McNair-Wilson) raised a point in Committee about the interest rate, to which I did not reply. It is exactly the same as the rate fixed by the Treasury every Thursday.
I commend the Third Reading of the Bill to the House so that, when the existing loans money runs out in the middle of next year, it will be replenished so that allocations for housing and for the Northern Ireland electricity authority — especially for the transfer of Kilroot to coal—can go ahead.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill read the Third time, and passed.

STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c

CONSUMER PROTECTION

Motion made and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 79(5) (Standing Committees on Statutory Instruments, &amp;c.)

That the draft Nightwear (Safety) Regulations 1985, which were laid before this House on 15th November, be approved.—[Mr. Mather.]

Question agreed to.

Heating Bills

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Mather.]

Mr. Gordon Wilson: The subject of the debate is the effect of poor summer weather on the elderly and the very young. Before coming to that, I must say that the debate on the Northern Ireland (Loans) Bill evoked memories of 1975 and devolution. It is one of the paradoxes of this place that Northern Ireland is to be offered devolution when it does not want it, while Scotland, which wants it, cannot get it.
I want to turn the attention of the Minister and the House to the problem facing many elderly and very young people because of the poor weather during the summer —if summer be the right description. In recent years a considerable amount of attention has been drawn to the instances of fuel poverty, but most of the concern was about the effects of winter weather on the frail, elderly and the families living on the margins of income.
Those on supplementary benefit and heating allowances hope that during the summer they can save to pay their winter electricity, gas and coal bills. Many hon. Members will have experience of constituents approaching them at the end of winter with high bills that they have great difficulty in paying under the current supplementary benefit rates. Indeed, they have been faced with the prospect of disconnection.
Some of those people were able to cut their arrears during the summer months when they could turn off their heating systems, or perhaps put something aside towards the bills for the winter months. We must recognise that this is not an academic matter, nor is it purely a case of the discomfort that many families experience because they cannot afford sufficient fuel. It can be one of life and death.
Age Concern has looked into the matter. It has said, based upon a survey done as far back as 1972, that some 70,000 Scots pensioners are at risk from hypothermia. If, however, one scales it up to the present population aged over 65 years, I am informed that the figure is now nearer 130,000.
The problem medically for the elderly, although it applies also to children in their first year of life, is that they sometimes have difficulty in being able to sense changes in temperature. The young have no control over their clothing or the way in which they react. The elderly frequently do not notice changes in temperature up to something like 5 degrees Centigrade. That is why they can be at risk and, before they know it, they can be in danger.
There are between 3,000 and 5,000 deaths per year in Scotland from cold-related illnesses. Some 20 per cent. of all Scottish houses —and that may be an underestimate —have a problem with dampness. In 1972 the Wicks report when it came out made it clear that pensioners spend over twice as much of their budget on fuel as the average of all households. Indeed, that same report demonstrated that 88 per cent. of people who would have liked more heating cited expense as the reason for not having it. They deliberately economised on fuel because they felt they did not have the resources with which to pay for it. We are now dealing with the problem of the population becoming progressively older so that at present some 17 per cent. of the Scottish population is over pensionable age.
I do not pretend that this is a purely Scottish problem. Other areas of the United Kingdom suffer from climatic variations, but I trust that it is stating the obvious to point out that the Scottish climate, because of our northerly location, suffers from harsher weather conditions. It is a matter of indisputable scientific proof that it is 20 per cent. more expensive to heat a house in Glasgow than it is to heat a similar house in Bristol. In Aberdeen the comparable figure is 30 per cent., while there are many more upland and exposed households where the weather is windier and colder. Nor is it just the case that cold weather is more severe. People also have to cope with a longer winter, lack of sunshine, shorter days, greater wind velocity and a higher rainfall, all part and parcel of living further to the north in winter. It is not surprising, therefore, that electricity consumption is 25 per cent. and 50 per cent. higher in the south and north board areas respectively compared with consumption in England.
If any further proof were needed, a glance at a recent written answer given to the hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes) shows not only that official hypothermia death returns are running in the first half of 1985 at record levels but that Scotland accounts for some 33 per cent. of all the deaths where mention is made of hypothermia on the death certificate. As we know, the official returns on the death certificate, because of the difficulty of diagnosis, represent only a small proportion of those who die from cold-related illness.
All this has been compounded by the 1985 summer. Apart from the month of October, it was simply appalling. Cumulative Scottish weather conditions were found to be the worst for a century. From July to September rainfall was 200 per cent. to 300 per cent. above normal. Sunshine was less that 75 per cent. of the usual. This has had a direct impact on heating. People had to heat their homes right through the summer. During the summer quarter, fuel consumption rose dramatically. Compared with 1984 gas consumption went up by 20 per cent. and electricity in the south of Scotland electricity board area by 12 per cent. Figures have not been made available for the hydro-board area, but might be greater because it covers the more northern latitudes. Increases in coal were also sustained in different areas, to upwards of 20 per cent.
It is not surprising that during the summer fuel arrears have arisen. Many people have used up the savings that they had kept for fuel consumption during the winter. This is serious, because the graphs show that deaths among the elderly rose by 20 per cent. and among the very young by 40 per cent. in winter, as compared to summer. This phenomenon does not occur in similar age groupings in Scandinavia. Part of the blame lies in the poorer quality of housing. With lack of insulation, a disproportionate amount warms the external environment, and there is no real programme of upgrading, and what there is seems to be under attack. It is one of the stupidities of Government policy that in 1981 –83 they paid out something under £15,000 million of fuel benefits, actual or reputed, but provided only some £18 million for basic insulation.
The whole point is about ability to pay. on 28 November, the Government acknowledged the exceptionally bad weather conditions, when the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food gave a subsidy to farmers, for fodder for their cattle. What about the people who also had to put up with the cold, wet and windy summer? So

far, there has been no announcement, although winter has struck early and most bitterly. The benefit system is inadequate, unfair and unjust.
The House knows that I have before called for a cold climate allowance. Instead, there is the severe weather allowance, which I prefer to call a warm climate allowance because it favours payment in the south rather than in the north. Last year, 170,000 payments were made in England, but none in Scotland, although lower temperatures were prevailing in our country.
No one in Scotland will miss the severe weather allowance when it is abolished. It does not give us any help —a case of cold comfort for the Scots, and southern comfort for the English. In any event, the system has been declared illegal by the Social Security Conunissioner, but the Government are silent, and I hope that the Minister will say something to clear up the position, and about the guidelines. Will the scheme last, and will any back-money be paid to all those people who applied last year, but failed to get a bean out of the system?
In plain language, the scheme is daft. It is unfair to those living in normally cold areas. It is confusing for benefit officers, and if it is confusing for them, how much more confusing must it have been for the general public? The elderly could not predict whether the cold temperatures would last long enough to bring clown the average and so trigger off the payments. Old folk had no way of knowing whether they could afford the extra heat. The winter has struck early, and the fear of the size of the fuel bills is the greatest disincentive to the elderly in keeping warm. After the summer, many could have difficulty in paying for fuel, and be in a more difficult and harsh position than last year.
The Government cannot be complacent about the trend in deaths. It is immoral to give extra cash to keep animals alive when people either die or face the misery of being trapped in cold and draughty homes. It is necessary to give help to the farmers, in view of the bad summer, but, if the Government are willing to give it to the farmers, they should also be prepared to help other people. The Government cannot abolish fuel allowances. Adequate allowances are the only guarantee for aged and low-income families that they will have any chance of keeping themselves warm in this and future winters. I hope that the Minister will be able to respond sympathetically to my case.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. John Major): The hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. Wilson) has pursued the issue of heating in all its aspects for some time, and I congratulate him on his persistence. I hope that he will understand if I cannot congratulate him wholeheartedly on everything that he said. It is not so much what the hon. Gentleman said as what he did not say.
An acknowledgement of what the Government have done to help with heating bills would have been welcome. By any yardstick, the Government's contribution has been substantial, whether in terms of summer or winter bills. It is appropriate to put that on the record.
The hon. Gentleman did not mention that the Government have committed many billions of pounds to social security and have kept major benefit rates ahead of rising prices since 1979. This includes considerable help to the least well off for day-to-day expenses, including


heating, through substantial increases in supplementary benefit rates. These rates rose by 6 per cent. over and above the rise in prices between 1979 and 1984, and they were raised again a few days ago. More specifically, there was no acknowledgement of the substantial sum of £400 million spent last year on heating additions. The money was directed primarily to pensioners on supplementary benefit, to the sick, to the disabled and to some other special groups. That is a substantial record. The hon. Gentleman did not acknowledge that that substantial amount was £140 million more in real terms than had been spent by any previous Government on heating additions. This substantial Government record is not inclusive of all that has been achieved. I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman, when presenting his case, was not able to make specific acknowledgement of this record.

Mr. Wilson: I do not wish to deter the hon. Gentleman from answering the principal case, but does he think that the Government have done enough, considering the rising trend of deaths from hypothermia and the misery that many elderly people face in their homes?

Mr. Major: I shall deal with that issue in the course of my speech.
The principle of weekly help with all living expenses, plus extra weekly help for those with special needs, is one that we plan to retain under the proposed reforms that will see the light of day in the White Paper shortly. I stress this because the hon. Gentleman clearly feels that, by changing the present complex system of heating additions, we are ending assistance with heating costs. That is not the position.
The income support scheme which we propose in our Green Paper in June will provide a better basis for regular weekly help for claimants. There will be basic personal allowances for normal living expenses, including fuel costs. There will be weekly premium payments for families, pensioners, the sick, the disabled and for lone parents. The premiums will be given in recognition of the fact that these groups face special pressures, not least with the cost of extra heating.
The fact that we shall not call the premiums "heating additions" does not mean that they do not exist, that the cash is not in the claimants' pockets and that it cannot be used towards fuel costs. We expect that these resources will be used to go towards fuel costs and that income support, for a variety of reasons, will be a simpler and more effective means of help than the present complex system which has many defects, some of which the hon. Gentleman honestly outlined.
I do not disparage the substantial help given through heating additions, though their structure results in an uneasy alliance between automatic entitlement for pensioners on supplementary benefit and others and the complex rules about details of claimants' health problems. The present regulations are quite mind-boggling in their complexity. The advantages which we believe will accrue from the income support scheme include the fact that we will avoid complexity and most important, the intrusive questioning that takes place before an entitlement can be determined. I believe that the hon. Gentleman will concede that that will be a substantial improvement on the

present position. I emphasise strongly that help will continue to be given to these groups through the special premia that we propose.
The hon. Gentleman spoke about high summer fuel bills, and I recognise that there are particular difficulties when bills are higher than usual. However, the problem must be put in context. Social security collectively costs many billions of pounds. It helps millions with their living expenses, and our aim is to ensure that that happens as effectively and simply as possible. Surely no one can dispute that over the years the system has become far too complicated and that that is not in the interests of claimants who receive assistance or those who run the system. It is clear that it is of no help to anyone. However, we shall make no progress in producing the right sort of rational, modern and helpful system that directs and targets help to where it is most needed if we try to tailor the weekly income that is provided for millions by introducing variations that are based on weather conditions, time of year or locality, for example.
Most people plan on the basis that they will spend less one week and more the next, and we should give social security claimants the credit of recognising that they do likewise. We shall continue to provide a level of weekly income that takes account of the recurring extra pressures that are faced by groups such as pensioners. That must be a more sensible and efficient way of providing help than increasing heating additions in the winter, decreasing them in the summer and increasing them again in the summer if the weather proves to be especially bad, as the hon. Gentleman has said it was during this summer.
The hon. Gentleman referred to the length of the heating season, and I understand the arguments that he has advanced. I have already explained that the help that we provide is geared to people's needs year in and year out and not to providing higher levels of help at certain times of year. He implied that the heating season is generally longer in the colder parts of Great Britain than elsewhere. That followed on to a matter which he has raised before and on which he has some depth of knowledge, which is his idea of a cold climate allowance. That means, effectively, variable rates of weekly benefit depending on which part of the country someone lives.
I recognise the hon. Gentleman's interest in this subject, and he knows that my colleagues have discussed it with him in the past. There are real difficulties. Ministers in previous Governments have seen strong arguments against any deviation from the principle of national benefit levels and I am bound to say that we can see the same arguments against them. Apart from heating, there are many regional price variations. It would be possible to make a similar case based on variations in transport or food costs, for example. There is a variety of other variable prices in different parts of the country and I have no doubt that others could point to variations that have an acute effect on the persons with whom they are concerned.
If we were in the business of trying to take a detailed and comprehensive account of all the variations, the task of setting and changing all the benefit rates each year would become impossibly complicated. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will acknowledge that that is so when he has time for reflection. There is evidence that there is little variation between the amount spent on average on fuel by those who live in different parts of Britain. That remains true at all income levels throughout the United Kingdom.
I share the hon. Gentleman's concern about hypothermia. Each winter we hear distressing accounts of old people —perhaps proud and independent people who are entitled to help but who for various reasons do not seek it, or who face difficulties in obtaining it —who suffer from the cold. I understand the problems and care about it as much as the hon. Gentleman. However, it is not reasonable to portray the Government —I think that the hon. Gentleman began to move in this direction when he remarked about help for farmers and not for those in need of heating additions —as uncaring and aloof from the problem of hypothermia.

Mr. Wilson: They are.

Mr. Donald Stewart: That is right.

Mr. Major: I reject that charge absolutely. They would do well to recall, before they make it, that it was a Conservative Administration in 1979 that introduced automatic heating additions for the first time for older supplementary pensioner householders.

Mr. Wilson: It is not enough.

Mr. Major: If he thinks that that initial move was not enough, the hon. Gentleman may recall that subsequently we extended the number automatically entitled to heating additions so that as of today about 1·5 million supplementary pensioners over 65 get extra help with their heating of between £2·20 and £1–45 per week. When he makes remarks about help for cattle and not for people, he overlooks that substantial amount of assistance that was introduced, and is being given, by this Government. He might also bear in mind that nine out of every 10 supplementary pensioners now get heating additions, compared with only six or seven out of every 10 in 1978.
The hon. Gentleman also dealt with the exceptionally severe weather payments and some of the difficulties they cause. That payment is often confused with the cold climate allowance, but there is an important difference which may be understood in the House but not outside. Those payments are one-off payments to claimants in any part of the country if they have used more fuel than planned because of a period of exceptionally severe weather. The payments have always been a tiny part of the overall help with heating costs for the least well off.
The winter before last the chief adjudication officer, who advises local adjudication officers on the interpretation of the law, introduced a new system for determining when the regulation was satisfied. That system was based on temperature data provided by the Meteorological Office, collected from 17 weather stations throughout the country. The system was first fully tested earlier this year. As the hon. Gentleman will recall, there were some criticisms of the way in which it worked. I put that in the mildest form that is appropriate.
In the first place there were complaints from Scotland and from some parts of England and Wales where payments were not made. Secondly, the system was very complicated to understand. I recall that my hon. Friend the Minister for Social Security himself described it as a pretty weird and wonderful construction. Thirdly, the amount of help delivered under the system was relatively modest, about £10 on average. We now know that the administrative cost of the scheme was very high indeed in proportion to the help given. We estimate that last winter it cost over £1 million administratively to pay out £1·7

million in benefit. Clearly that was not satisfactory. In view of the difficulties we undertook to review the provision.
In the meantime, the chief adjudication officer arranged for a test case to be heard by the social security commissioners to clarify whether his guidance properly reflected existing law. Their decision, which was issued recently, was that the system used last winter was not a satisfactory method for deciding claims. They held in effect that local adjudication officers should use their own judgement in deciding, on the facts of each individual case presented to them, whether there had been a period of exceptionally severe weather and how much extra the claimant had spent as a result.
The chief adjudication officer is now issuing new guidance to local adjudication officers in the light of the commissioners' decision, so we shall no longer have the system of trigger points and degree day percentages which caused so much bewilderment last winter. None the less, local adjudication officers may still have to face substantial difficulty in determining whether exceptionally severe weather payments should be made. For example, they will have to decide whether the weather is exceptionally or abnormally severe. Interpretation of those terms is difficult. They will have to decide whether there has been a period of exceptionally severe weather, although there is no set definition of "period" and it may in theory be as little as a single day.
The local adjudication officers will also have to establish both what the claimants' normal fuel expenditure is and how much extra is spent as a result.

Mr. Wilson: Is the Minister saying that in departing from the previous system of trigger points and so forth the temperature to be used as a criterion in each area will be a local one rather than a national one? In other words, will it still be possible for people in the south to get benefits under the severe weather scheme while people further north will not get them if their average temperature is much colder?

Mr. Major: I was about to make that point, though we shall have to wait for the guidance of the chief adjudication officer, which we shall have very shortly. There is a substantial probability that payments may still 'vary between different parts of Britain in an unacceptable fashion. I stress that point because some hon. Members may have overlooked it. The commissioners, in their recent decision, held that the weather must be exceptional for the place in question.
A number of other factors will need to be considered, one of which is the commissioners' ruling that "exceptionally severe" also means exceptional for the time of year. I have no wish to belittle the difficulties outlined by the hon. Member for Dundee, East, that high summer heating bills can cause. The issue is whether ad hoc, finely calculated payments towards specific bills are the best 'way to help. I wonder if the social security budget and social security staff are best employed making adjustment for exceptionally rainy summers, exceptionally chilly springs, exceptionally misty autumns, and so on. Surely it is better to concentrate on delivering the correct level of weekly income efficiently to those in need.
We are therefore continuing to consider this provision very carefully in the light of the commissioners' decision and the chief adjudication officer's impending guidance.


We shall be looking at the effects of that guidance, both in terms of the way in which it seeks to provide extra help with fuel bills and its practical implications. In the meantime, the guidance is being issued so that staff will be able to handle any claims being made.
I hope —though my expectations are not high —that I may have persuaded the hon. Member for Dundee, East that the Government are anxious to help the least well off

with their heating problems. The Government are genuinely concerned about the matter and, regardless of whether I have convinced the hon. Gentleman, we shall continue to offer substantial assistance, although it may not be in the ways that the hon. Gentleman suggested in his remarks today.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at two minutes past Eleven o'clock.